Alex E. Stern
@theotherdrstern.bsky.social
Historian of power⚡️Writing a book on Reconstruction in Indian Territory 📕 NativeReconstruction.com 💻 Stanford Ph.D. by way of UPenn 🌲 Kentuckian 🏇 Supporting Carleigh Beriont for Congress (NH-01) 💙
Upon learning that AI companies bulk buy rare books, scan them, and then destroy the originals
Noo Awful
Alt: Clip from Christopher Nolan’s 2026 film The Odyssey. Matt Damon as Odysseus screaming while tied to his ship's mast as his men row past the sirens.
static.klipy.com
Happy “liberal arts professor helps save the Union” day to all who celebrate
Looking forward to #SCWH26 in Richmond this weekend! On Fri. June 19, save space for "Citizenship, Sovereignty, and the Civil War in Indian Country" 10:15 - 11:45 AM, featuring @marshall-trilogy.bsky.social, @jimmyskuya.bsky.social, and Michelle Cassidy. Chaired by @theotherdrstern.bsky.social
If you like history, personally or professionally, or care about art, literature, or books, come meet Carleigh Beriont, who is running for Congress (NH-01), TOMORROW (Wed. June 17) at 7 PM Eastern. Sign up to learn what her campaign’s about & ask her questions secure.actblue.com/donate/cbfc-...
Historians and Humanists for Carleigh!
Show your support with a contribution.
secure.actblue.com
wow, just…wow This reminds me of that scene in The Big Short when Steve Eisman asks, “Why are they confessing?” and Vinny Daniel says, “They’re not. They’re bragging.”
Is a New Report About the Humanities ‘Diabolically Evil’? We Questioned Its Authors.
K. Anthony Appiah, Paul Boghossian, Katherine Fleming, and Sean Wilentz on what’s gone wrong in the humanities.
chronicle.com
Historians! Humanists! Anyone who cares about reason, ethics, and empathy! YOU'RE INVITED! Come "meet: Carleigh Beriont, the History Ph.D., teacher, and former grad student union organizer who is running for Congress in NH-01. 🗃️ Wed. June 17, 7 PM Eastern, Online secure.actblue.com/donate/cbfc-...
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American Historical Association@historians.org · 4mo agoA federal judge granted the motion for a summary judgment on all counts in favor of the AHA, @acls1919.bsky.social, and @modernlanguage.bsky.social in our lawsuit to restore the NEH, ruling that the mass termination of grants was “unlawful, unconstitutional, ultra vires, and without legal effect." 🗃️
Just learned that Liza Black’s hotly anticipated new book, How Settlers Get Away with Murder, is now available to preorder. What better time to reserve a copy than the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls? 🗃️
I'm more anxious about attacks on public history, threats to the right to teach, the decline of tenure-track jobs, the rise of AI slop history, and the partisan manipulation of history for purposes of propaganda. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/a...
America Is Anxious About Its 250th Birthday. So Are Historians.
nytimes.com
"Defund the humanities to ensure that no one learns my brilliant insights are not novel" seems to be a working theory explaining a lot of techbro animus.
My god no! It was mass slaughter! In 1915, the US government counted the largest ever horse population in the US at > 21 million, which started to drop in the 1920s until the population hit 3 million in 1960 when the count ended. Horses live for 25, 30 years. This was not natural decline.
404 Media@404media.co · 6mo agoQuote from Advait Paliwal, Brown dropout and co-creator of Einstein: “I think about horses. They used to pull carriages, but when cars came around, I'd argue horses became a lot more free... It would be weird if horses revolted and said ‘no, I want to pull carriages, this is my purpose in life.’”
We have strayed so so far from reading books for pizza
DC friends!! Join us on this Sunday on the National Mall for a teach-in in defense of history and museums, ft. an all-star line-up! We’ll be there from sun-up to sun-down. More info here: linktr.ee/historyteachin
🔥 Brand new Greater Reconstruction scholarship, hot off the press!🗃️ Situating her reader near Nevada’s Comstock Lode, Nicole Martin shows “how the idealized free-labor home at the heart of Reconstruction policy played out in rapidly industrializing economies struggling to reconcile old/new values.”
Blue states should make democracy the prevailing theme of the upcoming school year. Not just civics/social studies classes, but democracy-reinforcing lessons & experiences integrated throughout the curriculum. Boldly educate through the crisis, don't leave children in despair, teach a better way.
Tell me again why Business Majors are more valuable than Humanities Majors?
Cheryl Rofer@cherylrofer.bsky.social · last yr.The University of Chicago has a debt of over $6 billion, against an endowment of $10 billion. They played with crypto. That's more than irresponsible. Their board of trustees contains a surprising number of people regarded as financial geniuses.
Because structural thinking offers inoculation against authoritarianism, the Right has vilified terms that nod to structure (privilege, patriarchy, critical theory), and attacked the institutions trying to help people understand systemic problems. Refusing to use the terms emboldens further attacks.
“Someday, I hope, we’re going to have a reckoning over the horrors of this moment, but I don’t think we can do it without a clearer understanding of how this fits into U.S. history. There’s a tendency to say, “This isn’t who we are,” and I get the impulse, but history is never that simple.”
Opinion | Concentration camps are not just part of our past, but our present and future
From David M. Perry: From Minnesota’s Fort Snelling to Japanese internment camps to Florida's Alligator Alcatraz, these camps have become an American tradition.
startribune.com
Increased layoffs and demanding more from your current workers? No wonder higher ed admin is so all-in on AI.
Dare Obasanjo@carnage4life.bsky.social · last yr.MIT’s NANDA initiative found that 95% of generative AI deployments fail after interviewing 150 execs, surveying 350 workers, and analyzing 300 projects. The real “productivity gains” seem to come from layoffs and squeezing more work from fewer people not AI.
“In the history of [EdTech] there has never been an instance of large-scale, data-intensive corporate learning infrastructure that has met the needs of learners... The goal with these technologies is to make money, not support people’s unique learning, teaching and working styles.” - Britt Paris
Let me add that AI can't do this. Consuming the historiography leads to new questions leading to new sources leading to new discoveries. This is a creative act. But facts alone are never enough. Facts must be interpreted. That means immersing oneself in historians' understanding of context. 12/12
These folks did an absolutely tremendous job sharing their expertise and engaging with each other and our 40+ person audience for Insights from Indian Country: Rethinking Traditional American History Narratives. 🗃️ #SHEAR2025
The narrowing of what we imagine as "the liberal arts" to a subset of humanities subjects (literature, philosophy, art, etc.) should be rejected. The liberal arts in fact embrace *the whole range* of non-pre-professional subjects, including the natural sciences. That's the vision we should defend.
These are the times that try men’s souls.
Seth Cotlar@sethcotlar.bsky.social · last yr.I have the unfortunate duty to inform you that the WH & Dept of Ed, as part of the Trump Admin's celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, has partnered with Prager U to create AI-slop videos in which we see John Adams say "facts do not care about your feelings."
