Alexander Manevitz

The cover of a book called A Pedagogy of Kindness. Behind the title is a full-page photograph of many different-colored umbrellas open against the sun.

Cover reveal! Pre-orders coming in the new year; releases July 2024. Grateful to the folks at the University of Oklahoma Press for such a wonderful cover!

The new Speaker rejects the separation of church and state, he disdains pluralism, and he certainly doesn’t like “democracy.” What’s maybe most concerning is the fact that this just puts him right at the center of today’s GOP.

sic semper tyrannis

This cannot be said enough. An armed society is an unfree society!

Reprinting for those who had hoped to get beyond the CoHE paywall: "We're Not Doing Enough for Grad Students at Conferences"
benjamincarp.com/blog/were-no...

Book Proposal Development Grants

Book proposal development grants for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Scholars in the Humanities

press.princeton.edu/book-proposa...

JFC the eugenics is loud.

Stanford Doesn't Seem to Understand How to College The only interesting thing about their General Education Requirements

Stanford is doing one interesting thing with its gen ed requirements, but it's not "saving democracy" through civics. With a grateful h/t (and a bunch of quotes) to @profmusgrave.bsky.social.

How Far Back Were Africans Inoculating Against Smallpox? Really Far Back. When I looked at the archives, I found a history hidden in plain sight.

I have a new piece about the West African and African Atlantic history of smallpox inoculation in Slate

slate.com/news-and-pol...

Great piece, Elise. Congrats and thanks for sharing!

At the top of the page, the logo of The Daily Tar Heel. The rest of the page is a stream of block letters, getting smaller as it goes down the page, that reads: ARE YOU SAFE?WHERE ARE YOU? ARE YOU ALONE? GUYS I'M SO FUCKING SCARED. HEY- COME ON SWEETHEART- I NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU. CAN YOU HEAR ANY GUNSHOTS? PLEASE STAY SAFE. BARRICADE THE DOOR OR IF YOU THINK YOU CAN RUN AND GET TO A PLACE THAT CAN LOCK DO SO. MY TEACHER IS ACTING LIKE NOTHING IS HAPPENING AND I'M LOWKEY FREAKING OUT. I WISH THESE NEVER HAPPENED. STAY CALM AND SAFE -WE LOVEYOU. IAM SO SORRY THIS IS HAPPENING. 1 LOVE YOU. WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING? MULTIPLE VOICES AND LOUD BANGING. I'M IN CLASS EVERYONE IS LOSING IT PEOPLE ARE LITERALLY SHAKING. STILL GOING ON AND COMING CLOSER, HOPING IT'S COPS. I'M GONNA FUCKING THROW UP. KINDA WISH I HAD SOMEONE ELSE HERE THOUGH. PLEASE PRAY FOR US. PLEASE STAY WHERE YOU ARE AND KEEP YOUR DOORS LOCKED OR FORTIFIED. LOVE YOU SO SO MUCH. ARE YOU HOME? SOMEONE IS ALREADY SHOT.

Powerful front page of tomorrow's edition of The Daily Tar Heel, UNC's student newspaper. From text messages sent and received by UNC students yesterday.

They’re like my alarm clock to let me know summer is ending and I need to start working on my syllabus.

Yale police union hands out ‘fear-mongering’ flyers to students “Young people are coming to the city for the first time. That’s appalling. You don’t try to scare them into getting a better contract,” Jacobson said.

In a racist attempt to scare undergrads and justify their own existence, Yale cops...plagiarized a pamphlet from when the NYPD did the same in 1970s.

2023: www.courant.com/2023/08/22/y...

1975: www.gawker.com/fear-city-th...

Overlooked No More: Robert M. Budd, Whose Newsstand Was Unlike Any Other He built a thriving business in New York selling back numbers, or old issues of newspapers and magazines, recognizing their value and the history they contained.

Loving tribute to a legendary nineteenth-century Black bibliographer –– this coverage makes me so happy

I'm just absolutely shocked that Rufo, who lacks any experience in HigherEd, is bad at running a university

I don't think I realized until I saw it articulated as such here, but I recently decided that I want my book to be a viable response to this question! And after big summer reorganization/reprioritization I feel well on my way...now to rewrite the whole thing, which is as terrifying as it is exciting

Haha makes me feel like a narcissist but I just left my own faculty bio page to confirm my office number!

Does humanities research matter anymore? (opinion) The rapid collapse in available research funding is one crisis in the humanities we aren’t talking enough about, Asheesh Kapur Siddique writes.

I wrote about the crisis in humanities research funding: https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2023/08/15/does-humanities-research-matter-anymore-opinion

Thanks so much to @nbcnews.bsky.social for asking me what it's like to live through a historic moment as a historian and how it compares to what I've seen in the past. Like those that have come before us, we know history when we see it, we just don't know how it will turn out yet.

Great short piece featuring Bélizaire, an enslaved child featured in then painted out of his enslavers’ family portrait. It’s about erasure of enslaved people in our history and our culture, as well as the significance of restoring their place in our story.

“We know his name. We know his journey.”

SAG-AFTRA Strike, explained

There is a lot more to that change than just the new job, but that is the concise and "professional" (lol) side of it.

And that includes how I hold—or don't—my own boundaries too. Grateful for the valuable reminder. Lots I love about my current job; one major thing is how I have felt the space for so much more in my life besides my job. Which definitely took some (re)learning after my first decade in academia.

A colleague called today with a research question. I mentioned I was with family and he abruptly said "no problem" and hung up before I had a chance to respond. Then followed up with a text: "family comes first." I so appreciated the respect of personal time in this field—though sad it felt rare.

7% of WVU faculty could be laid off while the top four earning coaches make $4million each and the president makes $800k, but tell me again how wokeism is the problem with higher education today.

Where have all the "it's not really fascism if it doesn't come from the fascism region of France" types gone?

Hand written invite card, with headers in graffiti-style font, for a "Back to School Jam" hosted by DJ Kool Herc in the Bronx on August 11, 1973. A DJ Kool Herc Party Back To School Jam Place: 1520 Sedwick Ave. "Rec Room" Date: August 11, 1973 Time: 9:00 PM to 4:00 AM Admission: $.25 ladies (heart), $.50 fellas Given By: Kool Herc Special Guests: Coco, Cindy C., Klark K., Jimmy T. School's Still Out

Happy Birthday* to Hip Hop.
8/11/1973 - Bronx, NY - Kool Herc combined audio engineering and musical flair to invent the break beat so his friends could dance. It became a distinctly American—yet also deeply African and Caribbean derived—art form that has shaped world culture in return. 🗃