This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: Harvard Crimson
2/16/2022
Two Harvard historians (and several colleagues at other instituitons) say that Mark Ramseyer's defense of his article claiming Korean "comfort women" freely contracted their labor as sex workers serving Japanese soldiers during World War II ignores the substance of their criticism.
Source: Religion Dispatches
2/10/2022
by Peter Laarman
The extreme wing of the Christian right is attracting attention for its rhetoric equating freedom with their own power to determine the course of society. A minister argues that recent works in religious history show that it's a mistake to leave out the significance of white racial identity to that movement.
Source: The New Yorker
2/14/2022
by Lauren Michele Jackson
A new edited collection of the folklorist, anthropologist and novelist reveals the broad, category-defying intellectual life of a "genius of the South."
Source: Forward
2/12/2022
Harald Jähner's book contents that the West German public's view of the nation's recent past grew darker as the years passed, but in the immediate aftermath of the war, a mood of adventurousness and liberation was widespread – at the cost of avoiding discussions of atrocity.
Source: Fast Company
2/12/2022
The CRT moral panic is just the latest instance of white America preferring to forget about the significance of race in history. Historian Nell Irvin Painter joins a new series where Americans of color critique the idea of whiteness.
Source: The Atlantic
2/11/2022
by Ronald Brownstein
The Supreme Court's conservative majority has been nominated by presidents and confirmed by senators who represent rural, white, Christian conservatives in an increasingly diverse country. Court historian Jeff Shesol says this dynamic has threatened the court's legitimacy in the past.
Source: The Daily Show
2/9/2022
Kevin Kruse contributes to the Daily Show's satirical take on the racist history of urban highway construction.
Source: Salon
2/7/2022
Attributing either the Holocaust or anti-Black racism to "man's inhumanity to man" ignores the specific roles of ideology and politics in creating systemic racism. The authors of a new book on Black-Jewish relations in America discuss how discourse goes astray between the general and the specific.
Source: Perspectives on History
2/14/2022
by Alexandra F. Levy
In authoritarian regimes there are fewer and fewer safeguards for historians whose work challenges nationalistic myths; often harassment has a green light from the state.
Source: Sunday Post
2/13/2022
Helen Rappaport's biography of Seacole began with a fortuitously discovered portrait, and pushed past the respectability-driven narrative she presented of her own life.
Source: NPR
2/8/2022
Filmmaker Christine Turner has examined the souvenir postcards produced at lynchings for evidence of the planning and community sanction given to racist terrorism.
Source: The 1A
2/9/2022
Labor historian Erik Loomis discusses the release of a pro-union report by the White House Task Force on Worker Orgainzing and Empowerment.
Source: The Atlantic
2/10/2022
by Yair Rosenberg
"But in order for this science to be followed, it has to include the science of how people interact with each other. In other words, there has got to be a science of the virus, and there’s also got to be a science of society."
Source: London Review of Books
2/1/2022
by Rivka Galchen
Reviewer Rivka Galchen looks at two recent books that highlight the importance of cultural beliefs in the acceptance or rejection of vaccines.
Source: Retropolis
2/9/2022
by Gillian Brockell
In 2020, Ron DeSantis signed a bill requiring the history of the 1920 Ocoee Massacre be taught in Florida schools. Legislation pending this year would potentially enable parents to block the lessons, along with teaching other important episodes of violence in the state's history.
Source: Whiskey Wash
2/6/2022
Historian Erin Gilliam discusses the fruits of an oral history investigation of African Americans' experiences working in distilleries.
Source: TIME
2/7/2022
by Olivia B. Waxman and Arpita Aneja
The Supreme Court's decision to reject a challenge to Alabama's political districting map calls to mind the often violent politics that overthrew Reconstruction; the brief period when Black southerners elected their fellows to represent them stands as an example of what multiracial democracy means in practice.
Source: NPR
2/3/2022
Academic freedom advocate Jeffrey Sachs says that laws on teaching controversial subjects are most impactful because of their vagueness; teachers will be pushed to caution for fear of voilating indeterminate laws.
Source: The Baffler
2/7/2022
Danielle Friedman's new book on exercise culture reads against the grain to argue that fitness has allowed women to exercise strength and push against social limits. A reviewer finds this compelling but only half the story.
Source: Minneapolis Star-Tribune
2/4/2022
Barbara Teed's play dramatizes her own family's history, which was shaped by a racist backlash to her father's advocacy for fair housing.
