Author Archives: admin
“Buttermilk” Meeks and chasing minor league baseballers
For those unaware, I really like baseball, its history, and its statistics. I adore Bill James’s Historical Baseball Abstracts and pretty much anything Joe Posnanski (even the unbaseball, like columns about iPads or his daughter watching football). And so I bum around … Continue reading
Bright spots
This fall semester was, not at all surprisingly, one of the hardest semesters I’ve experienced in a decade of full-time teaching. I’d stack it up alongside my first semester teaching full time–exciting in some ways, but also exhausting and overwhelming … Continue reading
Nosy neighbor
I’m hardly the only one whose personal geography has shrunk dramatically since Covid-related social distancing began back in March, nor am I the only scholar who has found it hard to concentrate on researching and writing amidst the pandemic and … Continue reading
Powhatan land acknowledgement
Before COVID-19 arrived in the US and prompted social distancing, self-quarantines, business closures, and event cancellations, I was scheduled to spend today moderating a conference panel at the Virginia Forum in Richmond. The three panelists would have been speaking about … Continue reading
The menace of golf in 1659 New Netherland
In 1659, residents of Fort Orange and Beverwijck lodged a series of formal complaints “against the practice of playing golf along the streets.” Hackers and duffers no doubt posed the biggest menace, but even the most skilled of golfers could … Continue reading
Oral histories from the Rappahannock River
As a colonial historian, I never thought I’d be working on an oral history project, but a couple of years ago a student from my environmental history class, Woodie Walker, who is also a conservationist at Friends of the Rappahannock … Continue reading
Some thoughts on football and the NFL
I suspect there’s a part of me that still loves football, but I’m also pretty sure it’s the part of me that is memories and nostalgia, not the part of me that lives in the here and now. In what’s … Continue reading
Native media responds to Trump
I sometimes think I should just stop being surprised and/or appalled by anything Donald Trump says or does, but more often I hope I never stop being shocked and horrified by how awful he is. Yesterday I managed to ignore … Continue reading
Election day, one year later…
On Wednesday, November 9, 2016, I awoke to the realization that my syllabus tasked me with addressing Andrew Jackson and his appeals to populism on a day on which Donald Trump could confirm victory in the presidential election. That Trump’s … Continue reading
Confederate monuments and white landscapes
It has been less than a week since white nationalists and white supremacists gathered in Charlottesville to protest plans to remove a statue of General Robert E. Lee, just one of the many Confederate monuments throughout the state. With a … Continue reading
