Sam Herrmann
@samherrmann.bsky.social
PhD student at UPenn studying religion. Mostly researching youth, families, and media in postwar America. Also spending lots of time organizing with GETUP-UAW.
just received my first paycheck since the raise went into effect from our union’s first collective bargaining agreement. $600 more than last month’s check. so many ways that will make my life and the lives of my coworkers better. it’s possible to reshape your workplace with your coworkers!
Wrote a tiny little blog for @shcy.bsky.social about a juke box that experienced a spiritual conversion in the 1950s. Check it out here! shcydigitalchildhoods.org/dir/conversi...
The Converted Juke Box - Digital Childhoods
In 1954, a news article from the Beckley News-Herald reported that a Christian youth organization, called Youth for Christ, had converted an old beer storeroom into a youth center in the small West Vi...
shcydigitalchildhoods.org
"Penn reached a historic tentative agreement with its graduate student union on Monday night, narrowly averting a strike that would have impacted teaching and research across the University." 📰 www.thedp.com/article/2026...
Graduate student union reaches tentative agreement with Penn, averting strike
The agreement comes after more than a year of negotiations between the University and the union, which represents more than 3,700 graduate workers with teaching and research positions at Penn.
thedp.com
"As Penn’s graduate student union finalizes preparations for a potential strike on Feb. 17, support from local politicians, faculty members, and undergraduate students has intensified." www.thedp.com/article/2026...
As strike deadline looms, politicians and faculty offer support to graduate student union
If a strike is called, graduate workers would begin picketing at 9 a.m. next Tuesday.
thedp.com
I feel like I am taking crazy pills. Charlie Kirk’s ultimate goal, which he said time and time again, would have been the suppression, through threat of violence and the use of state power, of the rights of those he disagreed with, including freedom of expression. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/o...
Opinion | Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way
nytimes.com
Probably time for us all to revisit Sara Ahmed's analysis of white supremacists again... The "we do this out of love for our own, not hate of others" is a bit too on the nose here.
New York Times Opinion@nytopinion.nytimes.com · last yr.“Social solidarity is destroyed when you have too much migration too quickly,” JD Vance tells our columnist Ross Douthat in this episode of “Interesting Times.” “That’s not because I hate the migrants or I’m motivated by grievance. That’s because I’m trying to preserve something in my own country.”
Corporate investors now own 30% of the single-family rental homes in the Atlanta area.
My initial reaction is that while it certainly seems likely that electing Leo XIV sends a signal about American politics, it’s maybe a bit ethnocentric for Americans to think that this consideration was the guiding light of the conclave.
scorsese’s makes a biopic about the new pope 100%
Jesse Hawken@jessehawken.bsky.social · last yr.Scorsese hearing about the Chicago Pope
A Chicago Pope implies the existence of an MLA Pope and APA Pope
THE AMERICAN CENTURY IS OVER THE ILLINOIS CENTURY IS JUST BEGINNING
Catholics respecting the midwest... you love to see it.
"Trump...has effectively given Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a green light to do as he sees fit, Israeli officials say...The return to full-fledged war would come after Israel already cut off all supplies of food, water and medicine" this era is so bleak www.axios.com/2025/05/05/i...
Israel plans to occupy and flatten all of Gaza if no deal by Trump's trip
Trump has effectively given Netanyahu a green light to do as he sees fit, Israeli officials say.
axios.com
happy may day, get in formation to get the goods "decentralized, social media-based approaches were effective in harnessing attention+organizing street demonstrations. But they couldn't steer the response of the system because there was no organizational support." time.com/collections/...
Why Protests Should Be Promises
Modern movements that aim to advance racial equity should withhold and promise, rather than perform, writes Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò
time.com
I've been thinking about this show a lot since I watched it. I've also read quite a few takes on it, and this is hands down my favorite. Worth a read!
Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak.bsky.social · last yr.Netflix's hit miniseries ADOLESCENCE wants you to think it's about kids in crisis. But it's actually just about their panicked parents. For @newrepublic.com, I wrote about how uninteresting their fear is, MY fear is, in the face of a problem this big. newrepublic.com/article/1907...
Plenty of politicians on both sides of the aisle feel threatened by rising class consciousness.
Harvard will not comply with the Trump administration’s demands to dismantle its diversity programming and limit student protests in exchange for its federal funding, the university president announced www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
nvm
Peterson Institute for International Economics@piie.com · last yr.We updated the chart. Average US tariffs on China are now 104.3%. Average China tariffs on the US are now 106.6%. 100% of goods flowing between the world's two largest economies are now subject to tariffs. Details & data here: www.piie.com/research/pii...
between watching the show Adolescence and listening to Jonathan Haidt’s interview on Ezra Klein, i am losing hope that we have actually changed anything about our imaginations of how we help humans grow up since the 1940s.
being a grad student in 2025 is just texting your friends at other institutions comparing institutional budget cuts.
what booker is doing right now is an example of what i mean when i say things like “we need more ambition right now.” there is room in american politics right now for people with ambition to take big stands and reap the rewards. he’s doing it!
didn’t get to make it to the home opener last night, but the skyline was fun to see on the walk home
how can you be at the helm of the world’s most powerful educational institution and render a letter so stupid and cowardly?
Anna Bower@annabower.bsky.social · last yr.Here’s the email that Harvard University’s president, Alan Garber, sent to members of the Harvard community in response to this news.
cannot say i'm surprised that the natalists are now calling bullets "freedom seeds."
Dave Weigel@daveweigel.bsky.social · last yr.Just wasted four minutes thinking of how Rs would dunk on Ds if their social media referred to bullets as “freedom seeds.”
a worthy bit of advice for my fellow historians. combined with the question of what our “this is not new” retorts have given us over the past 10 years? does a history lesson in itself elicit change? is information enough?
