Category Archives: In the news
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
Teaching US Environmental History during Trump’s first 100 days
This semester I found myself teaching U.S. Environmental History in what I’ll just call a disturbing political climate (har) for those of us concerned with our environment. In the past four months, Scott Pruitt, a “climate change denialist” and the former … Continue reading
The Jamestown Colony, Donald Trump, and the Problem of Patriarchal Leadership
*Edward Maria Wingfield’s 1607-08 presidency of the Jamestown Colony might lend insight to PEOTUS Donald Trump’s refusal to divest from his business holdings Last semester’s Colonial America class inevitably spent some time thinking about the Jamestown Colony, especially the struggles … Continue reading
About that “great, great wall”
Following the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump is officially the party’s nominee for president. Talk of a wall on the US-Mexico border has been less apparent in the headlines lately than plagiarism, Ted Cruz’s smirk, and various politicians and talk-radio … Continue reading
Muhammad Ali’s patriotism (and poetry)
I’ve had the somewhat odd experience the last two Junes of being on location when something historic happened. In 2015 I was at the Library of Congress, in a seminar room with windows looking out at the Supreme Court, when … Continue reading
On authority and objectivity
I’m continually struck by how many students seemingly prize the ideal of “objectivity” and neutrality, but more than that, how many of them are convinced those ideals are actually–or should be–manifested in scholarship and the media. I suppose we could … Continue reading
Feds recognize Pamunkey Indians of Virginia
I spent the last couple of weeks in Washington, D.C., and they turned out to be fairly momentous. There were landmark Supreme Court decisions on the Affordable Care Act and gay marriage, but there was also a much quieter announcement … Continue reading
American slavery, Indian lands: on money and marginalization
This is not actually a post about slavery, or really about Ed Baptist‘s The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, though indeed that’s where this train of thought begins. Rather, it’s about the study … Continue reading
