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Twitter

I no longer control my own X feed

John Fea   |  December 10, 2024

Someone hacked my X feed over the weekend. Nothing on the feed since December 7, 2024 is my work. (My last post was a repost about St. John’s basketball). My X biography was altered (it has now been wiped clean) […]

What is going on at Grace College?

John Fea   |  May 9, 2024

In June 20, 2017, Grace College and Theological Seminary in Winona Lake, Indiana fired three white employees after they posed for a racially insensitive mock rap album cover. The photo of the “album cover” was posted on Facebook. Read more […]

Who needs Twitter/X? Some reflections on networks of knowledge in a democracy

Nadya Williams   |  November 2, 2023

Democracies need shared spaces for discussing ideas and fostering intellectual networks. Twitter offered such a space.

What MAGA culture looks like in 8,000 responses to a David French tweet about leaving the platform

John Fea   |  October 28, 2023

Last week we saw how the MAGA evangelical wing responded to a Russell Moore tweet thanking Joe Biden for his support of Israel. Today it is New York Times columnist, evangelical conservative, and dogged anti-Trumper David French‘s turn to take […]

Princeton historian Kevin Kruse is done with Twitter (X)

John Fea   |  October 10, 2023

Back in 2018, in Episode 34 of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast, we talked with Princeton historian Kevin Kruse about his use of Twitter to engage with the public. At the time, he had over 84,000 followers. A […]

Trump is the only president in American history with a mugshot

John Fea   |  August 24, 2023

He is also back on X (Twitter); On the day he surrendered at the Fulton County Jail, Trump tweets that he will “never surrender.”

Joyce Carol Oates on writing, memory, Twitter, and identity politics

John Fea   |  July 19, 2023

At age 85, writer Joyce Carol Oates has “so many ideas.” Check out David Marchese’s interview with Oates at The New York Times. Here is a taste: How does support for the idea that diverse voices should be given primacy […]

Are historians attacking the right without asking about the left?

John Fea   |  July 8, 2023

Johann Neem, professor of history at Western Washington University and the editor of the Journal of the Early Republic, thinks so. And he is absolutely right Here is a taste of his review of Kevin Kruse’s and Julian Zelizer’s edited […]

It Twitter goes away, “how will people find quick justice?”

John Fea   |  January 10, 2023

Here is a taste of Atlantic writer Kaitlyn Tiffany’s piece, “Twitter Was the Ultimate Cancellation Machine.” Whatever else it is, Twitter is a place where the average person can subject others to their displeasure. They have been mistreated by Southwest […]

Tweet of the Day

John Fea   |  January 7, 2023

Context:

“Experiments in how to capture attention rather than deepen it”

John Fea   |  December 12, 2022

I’ve spent some time studying early American Quakers. This religious group featured prominently in my doctrinal dissertation and I once toyed with writing a book about an early 19th-century Quaker farmer. Perhaps Ezra Klein is onto something in his recent […]

“It’s hard to trust culturally influential people about the need for Twitter when their influence is tied to Twitter’s survival”

John Fea   |  December 6, 2022

Here is author John Calhoun at The Atlantic: Lately, Twitter has descended into chaos, and if you spend any time on the platform, you’ve likely seen the debate about whether to keep using it or leave for Mastodon, Hive, or any […]

A few words about Jay Green’s piece on Christian political discourse

John Fea   |  November 29, 2022

I woke up this morning to a Twitterstorm of attacks on Jay Green’s essay, “The New Shape of Christian Public Discourse.” Some people want us to remove this piece from our site. Let me assure that that is not going […]

I am truly humbled that you are reading Current

John Fea   |  July 6, 2022

Don’t get me wrong–I am humbled that you are reading our work here at Current. I would be even more humbled if you became a patron. But the title of this post plays off of David Brooks’s recent piece at […]

Are intellectuals and historians “yoking their reputations to the delirious churn of outrage media?”

John Fea   |  June 21, 2022

Joseph Keegin, the editor of The Point, gives us a lot to think about in this piece at The Chronicle of Higher Education. Here is a taste: As academic humanities departments shed undergraduates and lose both prestige and funding, professors […]

Is a Twitter edit button on its way?

John Fea   |  April 14, 2022

I could sure use one. Here is the AP’s Tari Arbel: Twitter tweeted Tuesday that it is indeed working on a way for users to edit their 280-character messages, although it says the project has nothing to do with the fact […]

David Bromwich on the state of the university

John Fea   |  March 16, 2022

Over at The Chronicle of Higher Education, Len Gutkin interviews Yale English professor David Bromwich on the state of higher education. The interview comes on the thirtieth anniversary of Bromwich’s Politics by Other Means: Higher Education and Group Thinking. Bromwich […]

How two Illinois history teachers are using Twitter in the classroom

John Fea   |  February 9, 2022

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 […]

From the archives: “Twitter and the Historical Profession”

John Fea   |  October 13, 2021

A reference to my article “Twitter the Historical Profession” is circulating on Twitter today. I completely forgot that I wrote this piece back in 2017 for The American Historian, the magazine of the Organization of American Historians. It seems so […]

Tweet of the day

John Fea   |  September 10, 2021

Metaxas and pro-Trump worship leader Sean Feucht are gearing-up for this event in Washington D.C.