Erstwhile contributor Rebecca Kennedy reflects on the value of reading fiction, with a reading list for the summer days ahead. Last Friday spring arrived in Vermont. The sun was shining, buds were emerging on the trees, flowering bulbs were making their first appearance, and a cool northerly wind was blowing off of Lake Champlain reminding us…
On the hundred and second anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre, Erstwhile editor Graeme Pente reflects on memory and class at the site, which he visited last month. The plain stretches to the east—to the west, the hills from which the miners extracted coal. Nestled at one of the canyon mouths stands the monument to…
Alessandra Link reflects on the importance of seeking professional networks outside of the classic conference circuit. Heavy rain obstructed my view as I turned off of I-290 on to College Drive, but it didn’t stop the memories from pouring over me: darting from my ramshackle house through the wrought iron gates to campus, a…
Erstwhile editor Sam Bock reflects on the burdens of knowledge and the academic’s obligations while on vacation. I’m writing this piece while I recover from the jet lag of my return flight from Maui. I am lucky enough to have spent eight days relaxing there in the Hawaiian sun with my family who were there celebrating my…
Erstwhile editor Julia Frankenbach recounts her experience at “E is for Environment,” UW-Madison’s recent graduate student symposium hosted by the Center for Culture, History & the Environment (CHE). Last Saturday morning, an unfamiliar rosy light filtered through curtains. Expecting a rosy sunrise, I looked from my window on the fourth floor of a conference center…
Regular contributor Travis R. May looks into the history of witches as it relates to the recently released and well-regarded horror film The VVitch (2016). This post does contain spoilers. “The most notorious traitor and rebel that can be is the witch, for she renounceth God himself, the king of kings, she leaves the society of his…
Erstwhile blogger Caroline Grego compiles a short list of history-related news links from the past month. The Academy’s Dirty Secret by Joel Warner and Aaron Clauset The gloomy news from the academy is nearly farcical in its pervasion and consistency, but such is the world that corporatizing universities have made. A recent study published in…
In Erstwhile‘s second podcast, editors Beau Driver and Graeme Pente and regular contributor Travis R. May discuss the Oscar frontrunner and its representation of the frontier West. Click here to download!
Erstwhile editor Graeme Pente offers a brief history of socialism in the United States, highlighting its relationship to Bernie Sanders’s campaign. Bernie Sanders’s campaign for the Democratic Party nomination has produced an incredible amount of public discussion. As his polling numbers have risen and after his surprising successes in the early primaries, one of…
Erstwhile‘s Beau Driver kicks off a news series on historical graphic novels by reviewing Jonathan Fetter-Vorm’s Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb in the inaugural edition of Erstwhile‘s “Graphic Histories.” Last year, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ari Kelman about his and Jonathan Fetter-Vorm’s wonderful graphic history of the Civil War, Battle…
Erstwhile: A History Blog 