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Zachary Schrag

@zacharyschrag.bsky.social

Professor of History, George Mason University. Currently researching history of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project. Views my own. zacharyschrag.com. historyprofessor.org https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0000-0003-1420-551X

928 Posts2051 Follower419 Folgt
SMH Historians@smh-historians.bsky.social · 2w ago

The Board of Trustees of the Society for Military History has approved the following statement of protest regarding the recent closure of public access to the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC).

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Zachary Schrag@zacharyschrag.bsky.social · 2w ago

Technology in the news: 1. Some level of Virginia government has set up a huge electronic sign warning of an E-moto crackdown on the W&OD trail, where such vehicles are prohibited. 2. Zach doesn't know how to photograph an LED electronic sign with an iPhone.

W&OD Trail, Fairfax County, Virginia. August 19, 2026. On the left, the trail. In the center, reflective barrels and a large electronic sign mounted on a trailer. The display is unreadable because the phone camera only captures the portions of a few letters that are illuminated in the fraction of a second that the electronic shutter is open. On the right, a traditional printed sign with the trail rules.
Julia Rose Kraut@juliarosekraut.bsky.social · 3w ago

Honored to join Ellen Schrecker & Sam Lebovic in submitting the Historians' Amicus Brief in AAUP v. Rubio. 🗃️ The brief focuses on the First & Second Red Scares, & on the development of free speech jurisprudence. Read ⬇️ Grateful to @brennancenter.org & Counsel www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

Historians’ Amicus Brief in American Association of University Professors v. Rubio

Historians filed a brief supporting a challenge to the federal government’s policy of arresting, detaining, and deporting noncitizen students and faculty on the basis of their speech and associations.

brennancenter.org

RRCHNM@rrchnm.bsky.social · 3w ago

Congratulations to John Turner, Professor of Religious Studies and History at George Mason University, whose book Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet, has won the 2026 Evans Biography Award. Read more: https://ow.ly/ixWn50Zz0uq

Mountain West Center for Regional Studies Announces 2026 Evans Biography Award Winners

The  Mountain West Center for Regional Studies at USU awarded the Evans Awards to authors whose selected works focused on the importance of documenting individual lives and their impact.

ow.ly

Citizen Cohn / Jonathan Cohn@citizencohn.bsky.social · 3w ago

This @drjoshs.bsky.social segment on MS NOW is such a calm, smart and respectful explanation of the science and why vaccines are so important It's kind of thing you can send to friends and family with questions or doubts, as a corrective to [sigh] what they might be hearing from the White House

Joshua Sharfstein@drjoshs.bsky.social · 3w ago

Thanks to MS Now for the chance yesterday evening to talk about the recent vaccine executive order. @weeknightmsnow.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?si=Z2V...

Aaron Fritschner@fritschner.bsky.social · 3w ago

Video of an ICE agent pulling a gun on a wife and mother, who is a US citizen born and raised in the area, near Bailey's Crossroads in Northern Virginia yesterday. Chillingly, they claimed she “almost ran them over” until she told them she had video proving that was a lie.

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux@bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 3w ago

Equally, I'd like to think that all of our students are intelligent enough to know that when I assign the Code of Hammurabi, it is not because I am endorsing Hammurabi's divine right to rule Babylon in the name of the god Anu, the Sublime, King of the Anunaki and Marduk the over-ruling son of Ea.

Zachary Schrag@zacharyschrag.bsky.social · 3w ago

There’s much to love in Daniel Okrent’s new biography, Stephen Sondheim: Art Isn't Easy. But I especially appreciate the way that Okrent presents the technical elements of Sondheim’s approach to composing, quoting an interview by Mark Eden Horowitz.

From Daniel Okrent, Stephen Sondheim: Art Isn’t Easy (Yale University Press, 2026), 113-114. More than forty years later, his extraordinary (if frequently technical) conversations with the Library of Congress musicolo- gist Mark Eden Horowitz demonstrated the problem. “Music is a foreign language, which everyone knows but only musicians speak,” Sondheim said in 2011. Here’s an example from his dia- logue with Horowitz: “Musical harmony, as you know, moves by bass line,” Sondheim began. Then he continued: That is the motive that changes things. And it doesn’t matter how you screw around with the notes on top; if the bass remains solidly consistent, it’s going to sound that way through- out. So, if you want to stay in C major, and you want some variety, why not go to a C I6? Now the instability of first inversions is something that’s very hard to deal with when you’re so used to block harmony. I get scared sometimes when I use a I6 that it’s all going to fall apart. Because, you know, it’s so easy and satisfying to pound away at the I-V-I-V-I-V, as most songs do. But when you get to the I6, it becomes a little more interesting. Because the I6 chord tends not to want to go back to the V, but to lead to a IV or even, some- times, to a VI chord. Point arduously proven. Technical analysis may work for musicians and musicologists, but for the rest of us it is at best opaque, and often incomprehensible. It’s easy to talk about lyrics: we use words to discuss words. But “the problem when you describe music in words,” said Anthony Tommasini, the longtime classical music critic for the New York Times, “is that whatever you say invites more words, more detailed explanation.
Martin Austermuhle@maustermuhle.bsky.social · last mo.

One part of Trump's $22 billion makeover of Dulles that's been missed is his big, beautiful, world-record 32,000-spot parking garage. That's *way* more parking than recent estimates show the airport needs, and it would tower over the historic terminal: www.notus.org/metro/dulles...

Let’s Talk About the Massive Parking Garage Trump Wants to Build at Dulles

The 32,000-spot deck would surpass both existing parking capacity and what airport officials have said is needed.

notus.org

Zachary Schrag@zacharyschrag.bsky.social · 4w ago

Reporters use AI to search through thousands or tens of thousands of relatively similar documents: SEC actions, diary entries, emails. Clearly relevant to some historical research, but less so for teaching undergraduates, whom we first must train to understand even individual sources.

Nieman Lab@niemanlab.org · 4w ago

Eight Pulitzer Prize awardees — 5 winners and 3 finalists — acknowledged using AI in their reporting process this year. www.niemanlab.org/2026/08/a-re...

Zachary Schrag@zacharyschrag.bsky.social · last mo.

The first students who were given these teaching machines were like, “Wow, this is cool. This is amazing.” And then after three weeks, they’re like, “Wow, this sucks.” — @audreywatters.bsky.social thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/can-the-clas... via @mitpress.bsky.social

Can the Classroom Ever Be Automated?

Long before AI, teaching machines promised to make education more efficient. Their forgotten history reveals why that dream keeps falling short.

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu

Thiago Krause@thiagokrause.bsky.social · last mo.

To the risk of being cancelled here on Bluesky, I'm sharing an interview with @leotranscribes.bsky.social on using LLMs in historical research. I hope to have sufficiently highlighted the necessary precautions. Glad to read your thoughts on the matter!

Thiago Krause on HTR, AI Agents and Archival Discovery

A historian working across 100+ archives on how HTR and AI agents surface documents no catalogue indexes — and why he now reads more manuscripts, not fewer.

tryleo.ai

will pooley@willpooley.bsky.social · last mo.

Some historical background to the fires in southwestern France, drawing on reading I did for my 2019 book about the moorlands, and lamenting the deeply depressing reality that we have known many of the causes of this ecological disaster for 150years 🗃️ williamgpooley.wordpress.com/2026/07/30/u...

Unintentional Arson

The fires in southwestern France are an appalling demonstration of the reality of climate change in 2026. But this is not the first ecological devastation in the region, and the role of human actio…

williamgpooley.wordpress.com