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Race

Reviews

Playing the Lottery

By Aaron Jesch | March 2, 2025

Despite calls for its elimination, the DV Lottery persists.

In Solidarity—And Sometimes, In Tandem

By Marissa Spear | May 7, 2024

What is possible when white activists heed the call of the Black radical vanguard.

Revive Your Darlings

The Castle on the Hill

By Kyla Sommers | November 18, 2023

“We asked for Central High School but they think it is too good for us.”

Field Trip

No Gloves Required

By Bunny McFadden | May 18, 2023

Historians are well aware that a good old map invites curiosity and connection.

Mailbag

Why Do Archivists Get Rid Of Things (And Enjoy It)?

By Sarah Calise | November 11, 2022

Just because something is cool doesn’t mean it belongs in an archive.

Field Trip

Edward Guimont’s “From Outer Space”

By Edward Guimont | October 17, 2022

The Hills’ aliens wore clothing and spoke English—albeit with an unspecified “foreign accent.”

How I Do History

How Allison Horrocks Does History

By Contingent Magazine | February 9, 2022

“. . . if a wide brimmed Stetson gets us going, I’m content to start there.”

How I Do History

How Steven D. Booth Does History

By Contingent Magazine | December 30, 2021

“Archival work involves building relationships.”

Shorts

Nettie Asberry’s Lace Coat

By Mariah Gruner | September 18, 2021

It wasn’t just a coat. It was an argument.

Features

The Strange Case of Booker T. Washington’s Birthday

By Bill Black | April 5, 2021

If Booker T. Washington never knew when he was born, how are we so sure about it now?

How I Do History

How Aimee Loiselle Does History

By Contingent Magazine | February 23, 2021

An unexpected job opportunity launched seven years of adjunct teaching and rekindled Aimee Loiselle’s interest in scholarly history.

Features

Textbook Orientalism

By Kate Bennecker | January 15, 2021

In the classroom, all knowledge is actionable.

Shorts

Where Is Dorsey Foultz?

By Sarah Adler | January 9, 2021

When the D.C. Metropolitan Police failed to catch a murder suspect, white residents criticized and mocked. Black residents worried.

Shorts

What About The Bad Job Offers?

By Jennifer Caroccio Maldonado | August 22, 2020

After finishing a doctoral program, the goal for many has always been a tenure-track job offer. But what about really terrible offers?

Field Trip

How Camille Bethune-Brown Does History

By Contingent Magazine | August 4, 2020

A chance internship helped Camille Bethune-Brown find her career.

Features

The White Background

By Derek Litvak | July 24, 2020

The SHEAR controversy has only exposed structural problems within the wider historical profession.

Field Trip

The Museum in My Hometown

By Cosima Smith | July 7, 2020

The eyes of the world were on Farmville.

How I Do History

How Kate Shuster Does History

By Contingent Magazine | June 30, 2020

Through her work at SPLC, Kate Shuster helps educators teach hard histories.

In Search of Black Europe

By Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon | June 10, 2020

Johny Pitts’s travelogue is a counter to historical narratives that erase the black European experience.

Archives & Museums

How Jennifer Garcon Does History

By Contingent Magazine | May 15, 2020

“There’s so much experimentation and innovation happening in libraries” and Jennifer Garcon is right in the thick of it.

Features

An Interrupted Journey

By Ruth Almy | April 3, 2020

In 1908, Canada tried to deport the South Asian population of Vancouver. But the community stood its ground and won.

Field Trip

When John Brown’s Body Is Wax

By Allison Horrocks | March 24, 2020

What better place to think about authenticity than a wax museum?

Shorts

The Pitfalls of Fandom for Women of Color

By Natassja B. Gunasena | March 21, 2020

What happens if we demystify fandom as a haven for female desire?

Features

A Little More Knowledge Lights Our Way

By Erin Bartram | December 24, 2019

Who gets to take meaning from things and have that meaning-making respected and valued?

Shorts

Far, Far Away?

By Matthew Weisbly | December 17, 2019

The line between cultural influence and cultural appropriation can be blurry.

Shorts

Who Was Tank Kee?

By Christopher DeCou | October 28, 2019

He wanted to be an ally of the Chinese immigrant. By pretending to be one himself.

Shorts

Roads by Other Names

By Kayla Meyers | July 25, 2019

Renaming streets and erecting statues aren’t nothing—but they aren’t enough, either.

Features

From #TakeEmDown to #TakeEmOn

By Bill Black | May 27, 2019

She led the movement against Memphis’s Confederate monuments, and now she’s running for mayor. An interview with Tami Sawyer.

Shorts

Mr. Kay

By Sonia Gomez | April 25, 2019

What does it mean for a historian to fall in love?

An African-American sharecropping family.
Reviews

What Happened to My People

By Robert Greene II | April 21, 2019

The second half of PBS’s Reconstruction documentary begins where the traditional narrative ends.

Reviews

A Usable History of Reconstruction

By Robert Greene II | April 11, 2019

The greatest strength of the new PBS documentary is its desire to inform contemporary debates. But this may also be one of its weaknesses.

Field Trip

The Circus Hitler Said He Loved

By Paula Lee | March 29, 2019

Simultaneously beloved and despised by the Nazi regime, their stories are now being uncovered by a team of researchers.

A page scan of a book The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle image cropped, captions removed.
Features

Hunting Dinosaurs in Central Africa

By Edward Guimont | March 18, 2019

Before ancient aliens—before Lizard People—there was the search for living dinosaurs.

Shorts

Selling Angola

By Holly Genovese | March 15, 2019

It is the largest maximum-security prison in the United States. So who is going to its gift shop, and why?

The Pearl River Swamp on the Louisiana-Mississippi border.
Features

War Happens in Dark Places, Too

By Keri Leigh Merritt | March 3, 2019

In thick woods and swamplands and on small river islands, they bided their time.

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