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Chris Cantwell

@cdc29.bsky.social
3.6K followers 1.6K following 456 posts

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

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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Excited to share that the Chicago Public Scholars Consortium will be convening again, this time down at the University of Chicago Divinity School. The theme will be Religion, Museums, & the Media, & the meeting feature a roundtable of professionals who work in these fields. Please share widely!
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Watched this little Lincoln’s Sparrow smash into one of Loyola’s many all-glass buildings & sit stunned on sidewalk. I relocated it to the mulch behind a bush and am hoping it’s ok. But its left eye looks like the crash may have done skull damage? This is where a historian is not an ornithologist.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
New post up over at Aviana Americana on the places we bird and the histories behind them. The post explores Milwaukee's Lake Park in particular, and how it's history manufactured a landscape that let me see the #birds that made me a #birder. 🗃️
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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 · 08/09/2026
Happy Breaking Bad Day to those who celebrate
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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
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 · 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 · 21/07/2026
Also, signs of the times. (Look closely at the bottom.)
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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 · 13/07/2026
Look out, guys. I am ON THE RISE.
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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 · 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 · 17/06/2026
Attending a Metro Milwaukee Sewage District rain barrel workshop that is put on by Fresh Coast Guardians. Hoping to divert some of our gutters into barrels. Solid WI joke in the title slide BTW.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
Baby houses finches in our hanging porch fern.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
And, well, here it is. It's a three column day planner built in HTML so it can run in the browser where I also have my email, calendar, and OneDrive open in. I've made several edits & additions to it as I've worked, such as adding the colors, standing activities, & notes. It's been great to use. /4
Screen shot of a day planner with three columns built using Claude AI.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Had the privilege of getting a curator’s tour of the Chicago History Museum’s new exhibit on Latino/a/e history. It was inspired in part by high schoolers who protested the museum’s lack of representation, & their signs are now in exhibit. It’s fantastic and up until September.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
Ok. Here it is. The one pitch I’ll make for my book. “The Gospel According to Frank Wood” is an 80k word, 220 page book about one Sunday school teacher from Chicago. I know. Saying that out loud gives me pause too. But here’s the thing… /1
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
Saw my first snowy owl yesterday.
A photo of a snowy owl on the snowy ground against some reeds.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
What a line. Aldo Leopold, “A Sand County Almanac” (1949)
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
In the (e)mail today.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 31/08/2025
What. A. Paragraph. From Daniel Immerwahr’s “How to Hide an Empire.”
A page from Daniel Immerwahr’s “How to Hide an Empire”
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
My department has a nice tradition of putting your book cover up outside of your office door. Was touched to see it up when I arrived to start the semester.
Photo of an office door with a framed book cover next to it.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
The highlight was getting a preview of a forthcoming dashboard made a team led by Yusuf Ransome made that visualizes congregation closings by county to inform local policy.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
About to begin #FaithPlaceAndHealth2025
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
Very excited to be heading to Yale next week for this important interdisciplinary conversation on the social impacts of church closure. Yale's School of Public Health will be releasing a new dashboard that tracts the health disparities brought on by congregational decline.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
Super cool (to me) find while thrifting with @secondhandsacred.bsky.social. A postcard sent by “A FRIEND” to a Princeton student in the midst of the ‘64 campaign.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
Coming March 2026
Cover of a book titled The Gospel According to Frank Wood.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
Black and white warbler in my backyard.
Photo of a black and white warbler amidst a thicket of branches.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 04/05/2025
This passage from Tommy Orange’s “There There.”
Portion of a page from Tommy Orange’s novel “There There”
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
🗃️ @ncph.bsky.social ‘s advocacy committee will be hosting a lunchtime “write in” tomorrow on Zoom to write our representatives to advocate for history funding. So if you need an outlet for action to a space to talk, join us! I’ll be cohosting! community.ncph.org/event/Postca...
A drawing of a bullhorn saying “advocacy opportunity.”
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
It’s like having my own warbler observation deck right outside my office. So far have seen yellow rumped, palm, and chestnut sided warblers as well as an oven bird.
Photo of tree branches with warblers in them.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
This is an actually WI High School mascot logo.
A squinting lumberjack.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
A pair of American Kestrels have built a nest where I charge my car on the way to campus.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
Happy birthday to me. This is finally out of my life.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
Me too, Ezekiel. Me too.
Photo of a wooden statue of Ezekiel in notre dame cathedral in Montreal.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
I saw three bald eagles flying over Chicago’s northern suburbs on my way to work. Red wing blackbirds are currently singing outside my window. Spring has arrived.
A photo out an office window looking at lake Michigan.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
So flippin’ excited to see Shermann “Dilla” Thomas talk @loyolahistdept.bsky.social’s grad student conference. “If it has a name, it has a history,” he says. A motto we all should respect.
Photo of Sherman Dilla Thomas addressing an audience at Loyola University Chicago.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
Penultimate draft of the map going in my book. Would appreciate any feedback on edits that could be made to make things clearer. Only note is that the caption will explain the numbers on the map. TIA!
A map of the 11th, 12th, and 13th Wards of Chicago from about 1900.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
And then there’s this piece of solid writing advice.
Screen shot of an article on Ken Burns. The central quote is “Everything is subtraction.”
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
New two-year 🗃️ postdoc at South Carolina on the history of Civil Rights.
Flier for a postdoc
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
The Chicago Manual of Style, btw, is also not clear!!!
A screenshot from a page of the Chicago Manual of Style
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
From Ryan Burge. Have been thinking about this & the politics of defining who/what is an evangelical. George Marsden used to say that an evangelical is someone who likes Billy Graham. Maybe it's time to start just identifying evangelicals as someone who likes Donald Trump.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
Fun thing this year is that my neighbor built this contraption to find the park’s most level part. A hose full of water connects them. Apparently it’s an old Portuguese architectural practice.
Photo of two yard sticks with clear tubes attached to them. Couplings that will connect to a hose are at the bottom.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
Community service, ✅
Photo of the boards for an outdoor ice rink.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
We are so back.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
Folks in the #publichistory world will be interested to know that last night @loyolahistdept.bsky.social celebrated the remarkable career of Ted Karamanski, our program’s founding director & early president of @ncph.bsky.social. It was a well deserved recognition. 🗃️ /1
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
Post-thanksgiving tradition #3. Last one. Getting the tree.
A picture of a Christmas tree with colored lights inside a house.
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Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
Thanksgiving tradition #2. Getting a Black Friday beer from one of the local breweries & then saving it for Xmas. This year, got Gathering Place’s affogato stout.
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