Here is Gillian Brockell at The Washington Post: The Florida state legislature kicked off Black History Month by advancing bills that would allow parents to sue a school if any instruction caused students “discomfort, guilt or anguish.” The bills have […]
Way of Improvement
Is there just one American origin story?
Emily Sclafani teaches history at Riverdale Country School in the Bronx. Here is a taste of her piece at the American Historical Association’s Perspectives on History titled “The Danger of a Single Origin Story.” I write this as a secondary […]
Commonplace Book #205
Instead of making a case for a more democratic system that would offer all comers access to a high-quality system of universal higher education, the academy’s leaders adopted the individualistic mantra of neo-liberalism. They mouthed platitudes about the common good, […]
What is popular this week at Current?
Here are the most popular features of the week at Current: Jeremy Sabella, “The Tower of Babel and the American Experiment“ John Fea, “‘Jesus is My Favorite Philosopher‘” John Fea, The President Lacks a “Sense of Urgency and Outrage” Christopher Shannon, […]
The Author’s Corner with Kocku von Stuckrad
Kocku von Stuckrad is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Groningen. This interview is based on his new book, A Cultural History of the Soul: Europe and North America from 1870 to the Present (Columbia University Press, 2022). […]
My new toy
“While the Right has been busy taking the White House, the Left has been marching on the English department.” E.J. Dionne and Michael Kazin remember Todd Gitlin.
Here is a taste of Dionne’s column on the hero of the New Left who died this past weekend at the age of 79: …Gitlin was president of SDS from 1963 to 1964 and wrote the best account of the […]
Episode 34: “The 2004 Republican Convention: Part Two”
A satisfied Christian Right comes behind their “anointed” candidate Episode 34: “The 2004 Republican Convention: Part Two” dropped last night. Subscribers to Current at the Longshore level and above have access to new episodes of this narrative history podcast. Here is a teaser: If […]
The Author’s Corner with Stefano Villani
Stefano Villani is Professor of Early Modern European History at the University of Maryland. This interview is based on his new book, Making Italy Anglican: Why the Book of Common Prayer Was Translated into Italian (Oxford University Press, 2022). JF: […]
Evangelical roundup for February 10, 2022
What is happening in Evangelical land? Thabiti Anywabwile is no longer an evangelical. This guy has a few things to say about it: Wayne Grudem is lecturing in a “Women of Momentum” series: Also this: How social justice and CRT […]
The latest from Archivegate
It turns out that a box of stuff Trump took to Mar-a-Lago after his presidency contained classified material. Here is Reid J. Epstein and Michael S. Schmidt’s reporting at The New York Times: The National Archives and Records Administration discovered […]
The Author’s Corner with Adam Jortner
Adam Jortner is Goodwin-Philpott Eminent Professor of Religion in the Department of History at Auburn University. This interview is based on his new book, No Place for Saints: Mobs and Mormons in Jacksonian America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022). JF: […]
How ABC and the “Miracle on Ice” shaped Olympic television coverage
Here is a taste of Bruce Berglund‘s fascinating piece at The Washington Post: The 1980 Lake Placid games changed everything. In the lead-up to the Games, the preview issue of Sports Illustrated had a vastly different look, starting with the […]
The Superior Bowl (Super Bowl commercial spoiler alert!!)
This beer ad, scheduled to run during the Super Bowl, includes Serena Williams (women’s tennis), Peyton Manning (NFL Hall of Famer), Jimmy Butler (NBA), Nneka Ogwumike (WNBA), Brooks Koepka (pro golf) and Alex Morgan (women’s soccer). It also stars actor […]
“The moral arc of the universe not only bends toward justice, but takes an occasional twist toward irony as well”
The Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia will decide the fate of Richmond’s Robert E. Lee monument. Here is Michael Paul Williams at Richmond.com: The prophesy that John Mitchell Jr. issued about the Robert E. Lee monument continues […]
How two Illinois history teachers are using Twitter in the classroom
Robert Seidel Jr. and Kurt Weisenburger of Barrington (IL) High School offer some helpful tips. Here is a taste of their piece at Zocalo Public Square: For most teachers, social media has no place in a classroom. When they do use […]
Trump needs to face the facts. He lost.
Recently Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, a Trump supporter, said that the former president needs to stop wasting our time with claims that he won the 2020 election. But Trump won’t let it go. As Peter Wehner writes in The […]
The collapse of Charlie Kirk’s “America-first” academy
Pro-Trump pundit Charlie Kirk, the president of the right-wing Turning Point USA, wanted to start an academy to educate K-12 students in “America first” principles. But its major funder abandoned ship after it got a look at the curriculum. Apparently […]
How Hillsdale College, the “champion of American exceptionalism,” is shaping civics education in Tennessee
In November 2020, then president Donald Trump announced his 1776 Commission, a commission charged with delivering a conservative alternative to The New York Times 1619 Project. There were no American historians on the commission, but there was plenty of room […]
Bringing the Bible to the Jim Crow South
In 1900, Henry Nelson Payne, a missionary and president of Mary Holmes Seminary in West Point, Mississippi, a school for Black women, was frustrated that many Bible societies in the former Confederacy were not willing to distribute Bibles to African […]