A few things online that caught my attention this week: Bookworms at the Huntington Library A critique of big history The limits of biography The Twilight Zone as cultural criticism Doug Mastriano in his New Apostolic Reformation context Understanding the […]
Search Results for: James Sweet
Joan Scott and David Bell debate history, presentism and power
In the wake of AHA president’s James Sweet’s “controversial” column in Historical Perspectives, David Bell of Princeton and Joan Scott of the Institute of Advanced Study have responded at The Chronicle of Higher Education. (See our coverage here and here […]
What is popular this week at Current?
Here are the most popular features of the week at Current: Paul Luikart, “The Liberal Agenda in Higher Education“ John Fea, “My 2024 Presidential Election Predictions“ John Fea, “Happy Birthday, Felix Millan“ Robert Erle Barham, “Leave-Taking“ Elizabeth Stice, “Help the World, […]
Christian nationalists tackle William Penn
Watch: Anyone who has studied colonial America with me will immediately recognize the irresponsible version of Whig history present in this video. This looks like a piece of conservative activist propaganda trying to pass for American history. By the way, […]
Response to Malcolm Foley
Malcolm Foley directs the Black Church Studies Program at Truett Seminary in Waco. Today at the Anxious Bench he responded to my post on AHA president James Sweet’s article on presentism. I responded to the piece in the comments section […]
The Two-Thirds Compromise
Considering abortion in the shadow of slavery
The Democrats may have just lost my vote!
Many Democrats are upset about the cancellation of James Taylor on the first night of the Democratic National Convention. The DNC is claiming that the legendary singer was canceled because there wasn’t enough time for him to perform due to […]
Based on this interview, Peter Brown would probably have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected president of the American Historical Association today.
Here is The New York Review of Books interview with scholar Peter Brown: Nawal Arjini:Â What are some of the difficulties and pleasures in researching the less documented aspects of the everyday people of the past? Peter Brown:Â I am fascinated by […]
A Benedictine College philosophy professor on Harrison Butker’s controversial commencement speech
Benedictine philosophy professor Jim Madden has taught at Benedictine College for more than two decades. Here is a taste of his “On the Pleasures of Outrage“: I don’t want to make this conversation about my family, but a bit of […]
How can we end the semiannual time changes?
As we struggle to get through the first workday of daylight saving time, the big question is: why are we doing this again?
LONG FORM: Field Notes from the Basic Seminar
The pathos—and consequences—of our longing to be shiny happy people
Evangelical roundup for June 15, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical land? Happy Birthday to my favorite evangelical Christian–Joy Fea! See our coverage of the Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention here and here and here and here and here and here. Harvard Magazine features […]
Ideas in progress: William Thomas Okie
What is the focus of your current book project? What are the big questions that you are investigating and the main stories that you hope to tell in this book? The book project is called Wayside: The Hidden Histories of […]
Asbury revival roundup: February 16 at 1:20pm
Read all of these posts , including the original post (covering Day 1 to Day 3 of the revival), here. Today’s schedule: How revivals spread–my feature today at CURRENT. An evangelist named Martin Luther says it’s worth the drive to Wilmore: From yesterday […]
Evangelical roundup for January 23, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical land? More on the contractual relationship between Trump and evangelicals. And here. Evangelical support for Trump in South Carolina is “softening.” A Boston evangelical church is facilitating conversations on Black theology and evangelicalism. Evangelicals resettlement […]
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: The “new history wars” waged at the recent meeting of the American Historical Association. God and guns in American history James Waddell reviews Simon Garfield, All the Knowledge in the […]
A Further Response to My Critics
The day after Current published my essay, “The New Shape of Christian Public Discourse,” amid a barrage of criticism over the names I selected to illustrate the “emancipatory maximalist” quadrant, I responded. I conceded a few of the more blatant […]
On the slaveholder Jonathan Edwards and the Christians who read him
This past weekend a couple of folks called my attention to tweets from Joash Thomas. According to his Twitter bio, he is the National Director of Mobilization & Advocacy for the International Justice Mission (IJM) of Canada. I have great […]
The president of the American Historical Association on presentism
James H. Sweet is correct. Historians these days seem more interested in interpreting the past through the lens of the present. Here is a taste of his piece at Perspectives: Twenty years ago, in these pages, Lynn Hunt argued “against […]
Tangle of Vines
Nature knows the secret of rejuvenation. Can we learn it, too?