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Chris Cantwell

@cdc29.bsky.social
3.5K followers 1.6K following 447 posts

Birdwatching Historian of Birdwatching Loyola University Chicago linktr.ee/cdc29

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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 9h
A lot going on in this post, but I kinda love most of it. 1) let AI build your Canvas class for you, and 2) universities should return to blanketing campuses with (free!) lunchtime conversations. computationalhistory.substack.com/p/how-ai-sav...
computationalhistory.substack.com
How AI Saved One Professor from Drudgery
Implications for Administrators
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Our students are interested in doing a symposium on music & resistance in America's pasts & presents. My familiarity is with the folks who wrote on labor songs, but most of them have moved on. Who would you recommend my students consider as participants? Who is working in this space? 🗃️
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I had a realization yesterday while teaching that I think for the first time since I became a faculty member in 2013, notebooks outnumbered laptops in my introductory history class made up mostly of freshman. It could be this group. But it also felt like a sign of the times.
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Reposted by Chris Cantwell
dan sinker @dansinker.com · 24/09/2026
I wrote about the unraveling of social media and offer a proposal: maybe we just... stop? dansinker.com/posts/2026-0...
dansinker.com
What If We Just Stopped? | dansinker.com
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
🗃️ Welp, I've started a Substack. It's called Avian Americana, and is something of a history blog for #bird nerds and a #birding blog for history buffs. It follows my ongoing effort to retell American history from the perspective of it's birds. /1 avianamericana.com
avianamericana.com
Avian Americana | Chris Cantwell | Substack
History for Bird Nerds and Birds for History Buffs. Click to read Avian Americana, by Chris Cantwell, a Substack publication. Launched 20 hours ago.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Related to this, I'm also hoping to do some birding on Friday or Saturday morning with @ncph.bsky.social, so if that's of interest lemme know. It's fall migration after all!
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
🗃️ For folks in RI, @ncph.bsky.social's annual meeting will feature conversations on religion & public history. One is a working group on church closures & the other is an awesome plenary being held at the the church Roger Williams founded. Please share widely, as the plenary is open to the public!
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
there's a special feeling in academia when you have the final classes of the week fully prepared, it feels like the week is over already.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Happy Breaking Bad Day to those who celebrate
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
What a story.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
@loyolahistdept.bsky.social's 🗃️ History Grad Student Assoc released the CFP for their annual conference. This always draws students from across the country, and because of the strength of our public history program it is also a great networking event. Please share widely!
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Just learned from our writing center that student appointments have dropped by 40% since the advent of AI. There's a study to be done on how much of that is a result AI doing the work, & how much is a result of faculty no longer assigning papers.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Good to see @samplereality.bsky.social do some disruption again. Felt like like seeing a new twitter bot for the first time. americanatlas.world
americanatlas.world
The Atlas of America — Making Names Great Again.
The official atlas of the U.S. Board on American Names. Every place name on Earth, reviewed and brought into compliance. Current as of this morning.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
For 🗃️ folks in the Chicago area, @loyolahistdept.bsky.social organized a nice little talk for me to celebrate my book's publication. There will be food, so it will be worth it! Would love to see anyone who's in the area and free there.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Hats off to @louishyman.bsky.social & @historians.org for organizing this AI & History Conference. Incredibly bummed I can't attend. proflouishyman.github.io/ai_conferenc...
proflouishyman.github.io
AI and History Conference 2026
A practitioner-focused conference for historians using AI and computational methods, October 15–16, 2026 at Johns Hopkins University.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Among the many changes I've noticed as an academic, a particularly annoying one is the length of our syllabi. The front matter my U requires now makes the document 7 pages long before I even get to the schedule. And this is to say nothing of the surveillance of the content some of my colleagues feel
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
The West Virginia "Coal Wars," 1912-1921.
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Reposted by Chris Cantwell
Joseph S. Pete @nwi-jsp.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
'Midwestern Vernacular' contemporary photography exhibit opens at Chesterton Art Center nwitimes.com/life-enterta...
nwitimes.com
'Midwestern Vernacular' exhibit opens at Chesterton Art Center
The Chesterton Art Center will showcase scenes of the Midwest at its new contemporary photography exhibit.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
My policy is to never, ever talk about student work online unless I 1. have their permission & 2. it's to brag about them. Only once did a tragic & hilarious misuse of Wikipedia 10 years ago test my resolve. Today, a jaw dropping use of AI is similarly challenging me because it is so unnerving.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
“We are all migrants through time.” - Mohsin Hamid
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
“Location, location, location., the realtors say. Geography is destiny, respond the historians.” - Mohsin Hamid, “Exit West”
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Some kids on my block apparently just summoned a one-eyed lion.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Hat’s off to the curator of the John James Audubon Museum who installed this panel to the people Audubon enslaved while living in KY. It is the first post acknowledging this history, and the curator says it will not be the last.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
The dehydration headaches of archival research are real.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Appreciate this curatorial nod to silence in the @kyhistsoc.bsky.social‘s exhibit on the state, and our nation’s founding.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Public 🗃️ & #DH question for folks. Any recommendations for a methods book on text mining, topic modeling, etc. for a #digitalhumanities grad class? I've used Morretti, Jockers, & Rockwell & Sinclair before. Curious if there are more recent texts folks have liked. Thanks!
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
My throat and eyes are burning from the wildfire smoke. This feels worse than what came through a few years ago.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Look out, guys. I am ON THE RISE.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
I should add what I call “porch readin’ season” only last like 6 weeks on MKE so you gotta get it in.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
On my porch reading, I’ve heard both the neighborhood Merlin & the local Cooper’s hawk fly by. Both times the songbirds just go SILENT after their call. It’s like my own little nature show.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Here, here.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Watching Seinfeld for the umpteenth town and am just now realizing that both Jerry and George are both left handed.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
I am a modern American historian about to conduct some research into materials from the early Republic. Anyone have any advice on how to read or go through papers with handwriting from the early 1800s? I will miss my ability to skim printed records... 🗃️
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Grateful for my longtime friend and collaborator @janinegiordano.bsky.social, who gave me this space to reflect on my first book. It's even more meaningful that it's in LAWCHA's blog, as my first article was in their journal & my roots are in labor history. lawcha.org/2026/06/27/c...
lawcha.org
Chris Cantwell on his new book, The Gospel According to Frank Wood | LAWCHA
Christopher Cantwell’s The Gospel According to Frank Wood: Memory and the Making of White American Evangelicalism offers an intimate look at Frank Wood,
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
I’m honestly still figuring out how to approach the use of LLM agents as an instructor, so I am by no means the final word. But I can’t help but feel the continual framing of this issue as “cheating” is unhelpful & kinda cruel. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...
insidehighered.com
Brown Professor Suspects Most of His Class Used AI to Cheat
Brown University leaders’ response to the alleged cheating incident has been “meek,” the professor said.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Excited for this new project from @petermanseau.bsky.social & friends at the Smithsonian's Center for Understanding Religion & American History. It's 25 essays from a wonderful set of authors on the many ways religion has shaped the US over the last 250 years. www.undergods.org
undergods.org
Home | Under Gods
New stories about the plural and powerful nature of religion in the United States, past and present.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Are you aware that OMB's proposed new rule for research grants gives political appointees final say on federally funded research? @ncph.bsky.social's Advocacy Committee has organized a comment-a-thon to give public historians a unified voice against the new rule. community.ncph.org/event/JulyCo...
community.ncph.org
National Council on Public History
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
White men in glasses lecturing you about things on instagram is the new podcasting.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Give me a John James Audubon biopic in the style of "Marty Supreme," because I've come to think of JJA as a verbose, bumbling hustler who succeeds in spite of his talents as much as because of them. Also the benefiting from and engaging in the misogyny and racism of his time.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
for some reason, the autocorrect in this program i'm using is turning "Lucy" into "Love youcy" constantly. befuddled by this.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Today is the first day of the rest of my tenured life.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
I just noticed that eBird has a live map of all incoming submissions and I am now going to turn to it in moments of despair. ebird.org/livesubs
ebird.org
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
A reminder that submissions for @ncph.bsky.social's April 2027 conference in St. Louis are due Wednesday! The theme asks how our field has, currently is, or should "Hold the Line" at a time when history is under attack. Please share widely! 🗃️ ncph.org/conference/n...
ncph.org
NCPH 2027 | National Council on Public History
A note on scheduling NCPH’s annual meeting in 2027 overlaps with the important first days of Passover. We very much regret this conflict, and would have preferred any other dates, but we received only...
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
“We live in a forest of a grandparent’s choices: a changing climate, unjust institutions, a broken, bleeding world.” - Ethan Tapper
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
There is a merlin that lives somewhere in our neighborhood. I hear it occasional. But it is absolute screeching right now. I’ve actually never seen it and I just wish it would fly by.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
I did a thing today! And I’m way too excited about it.
A rain barrel!
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Excited to share the result of a history harvest my students & I did w/ the Immaculata High School Alumnae Association. "The Mac," as its locally known, was in the news recently as the almamater of Pope Leo XIV's mom. The school closed in 1981, so it was now or never to save stuff/1 macmemories.org
macmemories.org
Home
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Great story in the Christian Science Monitor on the Obama Presidential Library that features @loyolachicago.bsky.social history PhD student Shannon Honl, who is studying how these institutions have changed over time. 🗃️ www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics...
csmonitor.com
A presidential library that’s not a library. Obama Center pilots a community model.
As the Obama Presidential Center opens its doors to the public this week, its vision of transforming a traditional presidential library into a modern community center will be put to the test.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Sad to learn of Carlo Ginzburg's passing. His work very much inspired my own, from the selection of subjects to the attention to detail. 🗃️ www.nytimes.com/2026/06/17/b...
nytimes.com
Carlo Ginzburg, Who Told the History of the Obscure, Dies at 87
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
The MMSD is actually a product of MKE’s socialist days, and is an origin of the “sewer” in Sewer Socialist. Aaaaannnd,I meant Sewerage below.
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