Astrid M. Eckert 🇺🇦

don't get your hopes up.

I see students whose chances to get into grad school are shrinking b/c lines get cut.

oh, I wish. I'm bogged down by grading and teaching prep, but I introduced the seminar to the pomodoro method yesterday and got the sense the want to run with it! So, your good influence ripples forth... :-)

Catastrophic Diplomacy Catastrophic Diplomacy offers a sweeping history of US foreign disaster assistance, highlighting its centrality to twentieth-century US foreign relations. Sp...

uncpress.org/978146967723...

PhD and recent postdocs in Central European History, CEHS @ceuropeanhistory.bsky.social is accepting applications until December 1, 2025 for its Emerging Scholar Program. This year's program will support panels for the 2027 AHA Meeting in New Orleans. Details at: tinyurl.com/4y6n4rhz

junior position in economic history @ Wadham College Oxford

a leaf suspended midair on a spider's thread

Suspended in midair

It’s always a bad sign when human names get attached to wild animals. Celia became an ‘animal Saint’ in 2000. Efforts to “de-extinct” the subspecies by cloning Celia have thus far led nowhere. You can’t bring back a Saint. You can only feel the loss more keenly.

illustration of pyrenean ibex, a subspecies that has gone extinct in the year 2000.

On this All-Saints’ Day, I remember the Pyrenean ibex (Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica) to which I have no particular relation. It’s just that this subspecies of the Iberian wild goats went extinct. The last of this subspecies – the endling – was called Celia.

The Chinese Must Go — Harvard University Press Winner of the Ray Allen Billington PrizeWinner of the Ellis W. Hawley PrizeWinner of the Sally and Ken Owens AwardWinner of the Vincent P. DeSantis Book PrizeWinner of the Caroline Bancroft History Pr...

www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...

Illiberal America by Steven Hahn | Penguin Random House Canada If your reaction to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol was to think, 'That’s not us,' think again: in Illiberal America, a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian uncovers a powerful illiberali...

www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/748300...

there are some pumpkins to smash...

I understand your move, Dr. Hecht, but it is easier to do for 50+ US faculty with a considerable nest egg than for our younger colleagues. We had a good run, but I'm worried sick for the next generation.

Screenshot: Vassili Golod, live aus Kyiv

Na, da fehlt doch noch jemand in der Dankesreihe: Danke auch Ihnen, Herr Golod!

Screenshot from NYT article on constitutional principles that some civics teachers shy away from teaching

And so it continues (gift article). In 2-3 years, this generation will hit college.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/u...

I‘m sure she totally understands…

I "met" Reichmann a few times in the files when I researched my book on the captured records. I'm so glad someone has done this work.

Loeffler-Institut: Vogelgrippe erreicht bislang nicht gekanntes Ausmaß | MDR.DE Der starke Ausbruch der Vogelgrippe, auch Geflügelpest genannt, beschäftigt Virologen und Tierhalter. Letztere fordern von den Ländern jetzt flächendeckend eine Stallpflicht.

It breaks my heart that the annual fall migration of cranes (grus grus) in Germany turns into a mass extinction due to the bird flu outbreak. The pictures in this news clip (in German) are nauseating.
www.mdr.de/nachrichten/...

Central Europeanists, Mikkel is here!
@mikkeldack.bsky.social

they had also covered the Fulbright stipends when Rubio had suspended them.

If Harvard sneezes....

beyond words.

screenshot about AWS incident, making Canvas teaching platform inaccessible

Interesting teaching day so far. An "incident".

Friedenspreis 2025 für den Osteuropa-Historiker Karl Schlögel Erleben Sie die Festrede von Karl Schlögel in der Paulskirche – ein Appell für Erinnerung, Verantwortung und europäische Solidarität.

Eigentlich muss ich Unterricht vorbereiten, aber für die Laudatio von Katja Petrowskaja und die Dankesrede von Karl Schlögel muss unbedingt Zeit sein. Hier der Mitschnitt.
www.zdf.de/play/intervi...

A Horrific Tale of the Slave Trade, Destined to Become a Classic

High praise by @marcusrediker.bsky.social for a book on the ship that I thought was called "The Zong". www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/b... (gift article)

you can tick off the task of having a to-do list...

noch Monchhichi sein

Job at Univ. Jena (Germany) in Global Environmental History (due Dec. 11 // work start Fall 2027) - German language skills required for teaching #EnvHist #EnvHum www.berufungsportal.uni-jena.de/VAADIN/dynam...