Sébastien Tremblay

@sebboo.bsky.social

Historian (Berlin/Flensburg) 🏳️‍🌈 he/him 1st book: global / German / queer history, memory studies. Present project: mobility / Europeanization / landscapes 🦇 Grufti 🦦 Nerd & 🩰. Born in Montréal / Tiohtià:ke I'm lost between three languages. Bear with me.

Every year in my intro class I use memorable cringe to teach my students about hermeneutics and source critique in the writing of history. This year "do you think such a letter by Kaiser Wilhelm II would point out to a faithful source?" I read it out loud and enjoyed watching them recoil in horror.

A screenshot shows a computer screen displaying a slide with a black-and-white portrait of Wilhelm II in a military uniform on the left. The right side contains a text box with a message written in Gen Z German.

As a historian of memory culture in the Bonn and Berlin Republics, I believe 2026 will remain a central year in my research and for those studying the relativisation of Nazi atrocities for years to come. Even in the context of the events of the past few months, this is a baffling headline.

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Article in Welt von Christoph Lemmer. "NSDAP/AO PFLP HAMAS: Die Tradition, in die sich SPD und Grüne in Berlin stellen wollen."

Wenn ich diese Polizeiwagen sehe, die in Richtung Mitte gerade fahren und dabei definitiv ein Stimmungsbild wie am 1. Mai spüre, kann ich einfach nicht glauben, wie sich diese anti-Linke / gegen Migrant*innen gerichtete Psychose zu „Lasst uns jüngere Menschen verprügeln“ entwickelt hat

So from the racist lies of "she is having ties to Islamists" we went to the sexist framing of "how can she rule if she is caring about her family and personal safety" and we are now back at "die Frage, wie entschieden sie gegen Islamismus vorgehen kann." This red scare psychosis is insufferable..

Tagesschau Screenshot: "Nach Spiegel-Bericht
Debatte um Eralp überlagert Regierungsbildung

Die Regierungsbildung in Berlin wird erneut von einer Debatte über die Linkspartei überschattet. Im Fokus: die eventuell künftige Regierende Bürgermeisterin Eralp. Und die Frage, wie entschieden sie gegen Islamismus vorgehen kann. mehr"

gestern haben im neu konstituierten Berliner Parlament mutmaßlich 11 CDUler für einen Vize-Parlamentspräsidenten der AfD gestimmt aber das ist kaum eine Nachricht wert, lieber noch mal gucken ob Elif ihre Socken falschrum trägt

Can someone tell von der Leyen and her PR team that "no one knew where the frontier was" and storylines of discovery and exploration in this European-Canadian context are extremely..... let's say cringe instead of automatically assuming the worst.

Screenshot from Ursula von der Leyen on LinkedIn 

In 1906, a young Frenchman arrived in Canada to sell cognac.

He was struck by the sense of dynamism and possibility he found here. ‘No one thought about limits', he later wrote. ‘No one knew where the frontier was'.

That young man was Jean Monnet. One of the founding fathers of the European Union.

That period in his life in Canada would influence the way he saw the world. It could even be argued that it would later help to change the course of European history.

Today, that same spirit inspires us to explore a historic first: Canada becoming the EU’s first associate member.

At the same time, we are building a wider Alliance for the Future, starting with Canada. A common space for growth and prosperity, resilience and economic security. Focusing on trade, critical raw materials, AI, security and defence, and our cooperation in the Arctic, among others.

I want to thank reviewer #1 of my latest article and the author of a great manuscript that I have reviewed and will hopefully soon be able to cite for bringing my attention to this book. I am 6 years too late and probably a bit ashamed it wasn't on my radar, but this was a really good read! 🥰

Yellow book cover of Information Activism: A Queer History of Lesbian Media Technologies by Cait McKinney published by Duke  https://www.dukeupress.edu/information-activism

Lieber Spiegel, was für ein unwürdiger, von Sexismus triefender Text. Bei einem Mann würde die Sorge um die Sicherheit der eigenen Familie von Redaktionen ernst genommen und respektiert. Bei einer Frau wird sie zum Anlass, ihre Kompetenz infrage zu stellen. Ist das euer Ernst?

DER SPIEGEL@spiegel.de · 6d ago

Elif Eralp möchte Regierende Bürgermeisterin Berlins werden. Doch in einem internen Vermerk zeigt die Linkenpolitikerin, dass sie sich vor Terrorsympathisanten mit Kontakten zur Hamas fürchtet. Kann so jemand für die Sicherheit in der Hauptstadt verantwortlich sein? Die SPIEGEL-Titelstory.

Ich weiß, das klingt jetzt so, als würde ich nicht schon seit fast zwei Jahrzehnten in Deutschland leben, aber „Sehr geehrte Fahrgäste, wir haben soeben eine Weltkrieg Bombe auf der Strecke zwischen uns und Hamburg gefunden“ klingt immer noch so exotisch und regional authentisch 😅 Grüße aus Büchen!

À. CHAQUE. PU****. DE. FOIS. À chaque fois. Il y revient à chaque fois. Toujours. Chaque fois qu'il se passe quelque chose, chaque fois qu'il pourrait prendre la tête du mouvement, il revient à son obsession centrale : notre alliée naturelle, la Russie, qu'on aurait provoquée.

Got this message from Sweden yesterday and it gave me another boost of confidence for another application. I love to send these messages to colleagues myself. Tell people / authors you discuss their texts in class, it really brightens one's day.

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"Today my student in my Global history course has a long presentation about queer Iceland where she kept referring to this "amazing book" Badge of Injury!! 😘😘😘" And then my 😯 emojis

Yesterday at our Flensburger pub quiz, I said something clumsy at the mic, and one of the students immediately told another across the room: “Put that on the Zitatliste.” The Schrödinger’s Zitatliste: I desperately want to see it, and I absolutely never want to see it. 🫠

Ah Rassismus und Wähleraustausch. Das müssen die Inhalte sein aus denen sich der gute Ruf der SPD bildet von dem man gestern so viel gehört hat

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Alberta voted to reintroduce a head tax. Yes. That's what Question 4 was all about. Charging people fees so they are limited in their ability to prosper. Most of us learned about Canada's horrible history with head tax in school. Apparently we learned nothing about human rights violations.

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If the Queerbeauftragter of Berlin’s mercifully outgoing incumbent government had been alive for Stonewall, he might have sagely noted that the police didn’t march in arbitrarily: it was a Mafia-run bar, and there were laws against serving alcohol to queers and wearing the ‘wrong’ gender’s clothes.

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