Many of you are following the debate in Florida over the College Board’s Advanced Placement African American Studies courses. If you are not familiar with this controversy, get up to speed here and here. Over at Politico, historian Jonatan Zeitz […]
Way of Improvement
Poll: Republicans want to move on from Trump
The poll was commissioned by the conservative website The Bulwark. Here is a taste of Sarah Longwell’s summary: We polled three different scenarios and each showed Trump locked between 28 and 30 percent support from Republican primary voters: There’s a […]
Danielle Allen wants America to “pull together”
Harvard political philosopher Danielle Allen believes the United States “is in desperate need of democracy renovation” and she wants to devote her Washington Post column to get us thinking about how to pull it off. We at Current will be […]
Commonplace Book #235
But tell me, Lord, You who alone reign without arrogance, because You alone are the true Lord who have no Lord: tell me whether a third kind of temptation has passed from me or can it ever pass wholly in […]
The Author’s Corner with Amy Kohout
Amy Kohout is Associate Professor of History at Colorado College. This interview is based on her new book, Taking the Field: Soldiers, Nature, and Empire on American Frontiers (University of Nebraska Press, 2023). JF: What led you to write Taking the […]
Commonplace Book #234
The official censors in some American states have decided, for example, that focusing too much on the oppression of black people might hurt the feelings of white kids, identified as heirs of the oppressors. That is an actual argument, perhaps […]
The president of the AAC&U responds to the the Advanced Placement African American Studies controversy in Florida
Not familiar with what is going in Florida regarding this course? Get up to speed here. Lynn Pasquerella is president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities. Mary Dana Hinton is immediate past chair of the AAC&U Board of […]
What does Marjorie Taylor Greene want?
She wants more than committee assignments in the 118th Congress. She wants power. Here is Jonathan Swan and Catie Edmondson at The New York Times: Days after he won his gavel in a protracted fight with hard-right Republicans, Speaker Kevin […]
“The Arena” is coming to Current
When you wake up on Wednesday morning and point your browser to Current you will notice a change on the home page. Starting February 1, 2022, Current will be hosting a new blog called “The Arena.” It is a group […]
GOP: Let’s just hope Trump goes away
According to McKay Coppins, this is the best GOP strategy right now. Some even want him to die. Here is a taste of his piece at The Atlantic: Press them hard enough, and most Republican officials—even the ones with MAGA […]
Song of the Day
RIP Cindy Williams
Commonplace Book #233
Today in the United States, we are in the midst of a very fierce outburst of moral concern. You see it everywhere, and it expressed in political acts that lie somewhere between argument and terror. Large numbers of Americans are […]
Why do Republicans call it the “Democrat Party”
Cornell historian Lawrence Glickman explains in a piece at Slate: So, what is the history of this strange locution? Tracking the origins of the missing “ic” provides an instructive window into the evolution of modern conservatism. For although “Democrat party” has been […]
When Congress got rid of a George Washington statue…in 1908
Whatever happened to that statue of George Washington in a toga? Here is Ronald Shafer at The Washington Post: Slowly, some of the U.S. Capitol’s many statues and other artworks honoring enslavers have been slated for removal, most recently a bust of Roger […]
Episode 108: “The Life and Legacy of C. Vann Woodward”
In this episode we explore the life, ideas, and writings of one of the 20th-century most influential American historians–C. Vann Woodward, author of The Strange Career of Jim Crow. Our guest is James Cobb, author if C. Vann Woodward: America’s Historian. In […]
Evangelical roundup for January 30, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical land? Walter Kim and Kristin Kobes Du Mez discuss Jesus and John Wayne. Portuguese evangelicals and euthanasia. An evangelical who wants to do something about climate change. Christianity Today is hiring a political reporter. The […]
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: In praise of Barnes & Noble Is liberalism worth saving? Arthur Brooks: “happiness revolutionary” Camille Davis reviews Bruce Ragsdale, Washington at the Plow: The Founding Farmer and the Question of […]
Episode 51: “The Politics of Tinky Winky”
As animated programs for kids and adults become more inclusive, conservative evangelicals fight back. Episode 51: “’The Politics of Tinky Winky;’’ dropped today. Subscribers to Current at the Longshore level and above have access to new episodes of this narrative history podcast. Here is […]
He was Florida’s professor of the year in 2006. Today his courses would be illegal.
In 2006, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching chose WIlliam Felice, a political science professor at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, as it’s Florida Professor of the Year. He is now retired, but if he were still teaching […]
Zakaria: The nation’s policy on classified documents and “secrecy” is “out-of-control”
As is often the case, Zakaria makes a lot of sense here: What should we think of the fact that Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and now Mike Pence have all turned out to have classified material sitting in their houses? […]