One of the Internet's Hidden Gems Turned 30 This Year
H-Net, an interview with Executive Editor Jesse Draper, and The Academic Bubble.
H-Net
H-Net is one of the biggest and oldest (since ‘93!) internet networks for scholars. Scholars of disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities can join email listservs like H-Antiquity (for global ancient history), H-Borderlands (for Comparative Borderlands Studies), and H-History-and-Theory (for philosophy of history). With 191 listservs, scholars can keep up with new journal articles, conferences, job postings, and submission deadlines. If you aren’t familiar, check out all the resources they have to offer.
The Academic Bubble
Historian Dion Georgiou writes up great round-ups of interesting NBN episodes and creates useful, curated reading lists.
Scholarly Sources
Jesse Draper is a historian and Executive Editor of H-Net.
Q: What are you reading right now?
A: The $16 Taco: Contested Geographies of Food, Ethnicity, and Gentrification by Pascale Joassart-Marcellli. – I host a podcast about White male privilege (WiMP) and my historical expertise is in urban American history. This book’s focus on the gentrification of ethnic food and culture in San Diego intersects with both of those interests.
Q: What is your favorite book or essay to assign to give to people and why?
A: Personally – The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer – This book has been instrumental in my personal growth, particularly as it relates to becoming conscious of the ego and learning to silence the mind.
Professionally – Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 edited by Ibram X Kendi and Keisha N. Blain – This book is a great conversation starter in American and African American history classes (what I have primarily taught). I am a big proponent of community learning that draws on the personal perspectives and experiences of everyone in the class and this book contains a collection of short essays written by a diverse collection of writers.
Q: Is there a book you read as a student that had a particularly profound impact on your trajectory as a scholar?
A: The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications by Paul Starr. In addition to Starr’s revealing work demonstrating the political choices that accompanied and informed the technological advances that led to the formation of the American media landscape, his conception of mechanisms of entrenchment has served as a powerful analytical lens that I have used in multiple contexts in my own teaching and work.
Q: Which deceased writer would you most like to meet and why?
A: Kurt Vonnegut. Good satirical writing is food for my soul. Mark Twain is another favorite but given the 20th century context for my own historical research and experience, Vonnegut is always a joy to read (and re-read, again and again in some cases).
Q: What's the best book you've read in the past year?
The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby. This is a compelling book that calls American Christianity to task for its contributions to the perpetuation of racism and discrimination throughout United States history, from slavery to the present. This book is an important contribution to the conversations surrounding the increasing presence of White Christian nationalism in America.
6) Have you seen any films, documentaries, or museum exhibitions that left an impression on you recently?
The best documentaries I’ve watched recently include Summer of Soul and What Happened Miss Simone.
Museum exhibitions: Van Gogh, the Immersive Experience
7) What do you plan on reading next?
Crowds: The Stadium as a Ritual of Intensity by Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht. My doctoral research focused on stadium-driven urban renewal in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Detroit. I’m still fascinated by sports culture and stadium dynamics (socially, politically, and economically) so I’m looking forward to this brief philosophical dive into to subject.
New Books, Links, and Other Things
Igor Tulchinsky and Christopher E. Mason, The Age of Prediction: Algorithms, AI, and the Shifting Shadows of Risk (MIT Press, 2023)
Kirsten E. Wood, Accommodating the Republic: Taverns in the Early United States (UNC Press, 2023)
Per Högselius and Achim Klüppelberg, The Soviet Nuclear Archipelago: A Historical Geography of Atomic-Powered Communism (CEU Press, 2024)
Hanne Elliot Fønss Nielsen, Brand Antarctica: How Global Consumer Culture Shapes Our Perceptions of the Ice Continent (U Nebraska Press, 2023)
David O. Dowling, Podcast Journalism: The Promise and Perils of Audio Reporting (Columbia UP, 2024)
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Thanks for the shoutout! X