Drew Flanagan Ph.D @drewflanaganphd.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Morocco has its first woman Prime Minister as of today - Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri 040
Drew Flanagan Ph.D @drewflanaganphd.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Reading student reflections on the Leeds Woolen Workers' Petition of 1786 (protesting the job loss caused by new industrial machinery in the textile industry) and admiring how a historical document can help students reflect on and make sense of technological transformations in their own time 140
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.Droxanne panchasi @rpanchasi.bsky.social · 28/09/2026definitely had this one on my bingo card... 084
Drew Flanagan Ph.D @drewflanaganphd.bsky.social · 27/09/2026"A change in the weather is sufficient to create the world and oneself anew." - Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way 010
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DPookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 25/09/2026GenAI evangelists: there is no deskilling. You become as a god, a machine god, you- Every GenAI CEO: no one needs to know how to read and also I don't know how to put my pants on anymore 21259206
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DAP Stylebook @apstylebook.com · 23/09/2026Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics.apnews.comhttps://apnews.com/article/openai-safety-ai-framework-089e75b95bc935af092da7b79d92706d 5542321628
Drew Flanagan Ph.D @drewflanaganphd.bsky.social · 19/09/2026Thank you to all who attended my book launch event yesterday, hosted by the University of Pittsburgh's Department of History and European Studies Center. Especially all the Pitt people I met on our Fulbright-Hays program in Senegal last May - couldn't ask for better colleagues and friends! 140
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DDr. Lindsay Stallones Marshall (she/her) @lindstorian.bsky.social · 10/09/2026As someone who is elbows deep in revisions on a book about historical knowledge production and its connection to how we develop and reinforce historical memory, I cannot emphasize enough how incredibly destructive and dangerous it is to get your history from content generated by LLMs/genAI. 13719
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.Dandy™ @andylevy.net · 08/09/2026werner herzog on AI filmmaking (from here www.indiewire.com/features/int...) 8379812145
Drew Flanagan Ph.D @drewflanaganphd.bsky.social · 06/09/2026For any #skystorians following the marketing kerfuffle aroud the film The Uprising, a new turn! A few weeks ago the film's marketing in the USA shifted to (wrongly) promote it as a Robin Hood movie. Now star Andrew Garfield himself is doing historical context tiktoks to set the record straight 160
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DKing Algamemnon @adamrothman.bsky.social · 03/09/2026Sobering, insightful essay on how chatbots mangle historical primary sources. 🗃 www.hnn.us/article/ai-i...hnn.usAI Is an Anti-Primary Source MachineReal voices from the past are threatened by chatbots designed to amplify — and ultimately become — the loudest voices in the room. 9421182
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DOleksandr Polianichev @opolianichev.bsky.social · 01/09/2026Breaking my long, long social media break to announce that, starting this year, I’m working on a new research project, The Tsar’s Men in the Tropics: The Russian Empire and International Colonialism in Equatorial Africa, 1895–1910, generously supported by Östersjöstiftelsen. 2201
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.Dherman mark schwartz @thunen.bsky.social · 30/08/2026USAians, listen up. Norway's King, Harald V, died on Friday. Easily 10s of 1000s of people have been at the palace yesterday in the rain and today in better weather with flowers (photos later) Why? Maybe it has something to do with this speech in 2016. (Sorry I'm advance for wall of text) 1/ 1178
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DJason Hickel @jasonhickel.bsky.social · 29/08/2026I'm happy to announce this new paper we have, exploring unequal exchange between France and the African CFA zone. Here's a few key points 🧵, and a free PDF at the end. www.tandfonline.com/eprint/RABZF...tandfonline.comUnequal exchange between France and Africa’s CFA zone: monetary dependency and imperialist appropriationThe material prosperity of the global North relies on the appropriation of labour and resources from the global South through unequal exchange. While recent empirical research demonstrates this gen... 19233
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DOisín McGann @oisinmcgann.bsky.social · 28/08/2026This is set up for laughs, but it’s actually one of the best demonstrations I’ve seen of how being capable of producing convincing sounding language and understanding meaning are two completely different things. A chatbot does not understand you, it just has automated responses based on your words. 4939721480
Drew Flanagan Ph.D @drewflanaganphd.bsky.social · 27/08/2026School of Prof: a paid summer camp experience on a gothic revival campus where you lead seminars, try on intellectual spectacle styles and tweeds, do conference presentations, attend cocktail parties in midcentury modern apartments, and finish with the awarding of doctoral gowns. 030
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DWuTangIsForTheChildren @wutangforchildren.bsky.social · 26/08/2026Buckingham Palace band playing 9 to 5 for Dolly Parton 378154034303
Drew Flanagan Ph.D @drewflanaganphd.bsky.social · 25/08/2026Sail away with me To another worldyoutube.comKenny Rogers & Dolly Parton - "Islands in the Stream" | CMA Awards 1983YouTube video by CMA 140
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DAnna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 23/08/2026cognitive sabotage, you can ban it extra credit to U Chicago for bans on professional AND undergrad programs; smart SLACs are going to market AI free campuses soon chicagomaroon.com/53262/news/s...chicagomaroon.comSosc Core to Institute AI Ban, Technology-Free Classrooms This FallAll social science Core classes will transition to an “analog” approach for the upcoming academic year, restricting in-classroom technology use and banning AI-assisted writing and grading for students... 16912272
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DTed McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 23/08/2026Me, a US-based academic: I don’t care what any scholar believes, we all need to stand up publicly whenever someone’s academic freedom is threatened Me, continuing: also, the first time this has happened, motivating me to sign my first ever open letter, is in late 2026, to a race scientist, in Ghent 172691470
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DThe French History Podcast @fhp.bsky.social · 23/08/2026#OTD 22 August 1962 The OAS attempts to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle. 082
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DBriony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 22/08/2026Two nuns in front of Matisse's 'The Dance' in the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1964 – photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson, who was born east of Paris on this day (22 August) in 1908 🗃️ 36427
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DJoe Stieb @joestieb.bsky.social · 20/08/2026This kicks ass because it acknowledges that ALL the steps of the writing process involve thinking, and NONE can be outsourced to AI without losing something of the whole. I co-sign this declaration of hostilities. 26221
Drew Flanagan Ph.D @drewflanaganphd.bsky.social · 20/08/2026Here's a book chapter I really enjoyed writing, at the intersection of folklore studies, history of colonial ethnology, and the history of postwar Europe. www.academia.edu/124395999/A_...academia.eduA Universal Mission: The Folklore and Propaganda of Robert Boutet Between Morocco and Occupied Germany, 1931-1949In the early post-World War II period, many French soldiers and civilians with experience in the French colonial empire came to Germany to participate in the French occupation. This chapter addresses ... 051
Drew Flanagan Ph.D @drewflanaganphd.bsky.social · 19/08/2026I like this approach a lot - I'm doing the printed course packs, laptop ban, and in-class reading and writing in all my classes this semester 041
Drew Flanagan Ph.D @drewflanaganphd.bsky.social · 16/08/2026In Pittsburgh on September 17? Consider coming to my book talk! 040
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DPaul David Flood @pauldavidflood.bsky.social · 16/08/2026What are some things you wish you knew in your first semester on the tenure-track/as a full-time faculty member (especially coming straight out of your PhD)? 1592
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DErin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 15/08/2026Anyway it's wild that so many scholars are producing books and not getting jobs and we have to read "quit lit" from the people who got jobs and didn't produce books. 219016
Drew Flanagan Ph.D @drewflanaganphd.bsky.social · 15/08/2026He lighted a cigar with a "D'you mind?" to Albertine, as one who asks permission to finish, while going on talking, an urgent piece of work. For he was one of those people who can never be "doing nothing," although there was nothing, for that matter, that he could ever be said to do. -Marcel Proust 011
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DSarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 12/08/2026“Universities denounced themselves as complicit in systemic racism.” Well yes, my university for example held the charred bones of Black children killed by Philadelphia police and at least one faculty member was using them to teach forensics so yes, gosh, there was some necessary self-denouncing 423048560
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DGregory A. Hargreaves @bordergroves.bsky.social · 19/08/2024The history class I’m about to teach will generate about $130K for the university. As an adjunct with a PhD I will receive under $6K or roughly 4.5%. Two observations: 1. humanities courses are cash cows, defunding them is political not economic! 2. university instructors are grossly underpaid! 22821217
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DTerrence Peterson @tgpeterson.bsky.social · 05/08/2026You will still certainly not regret assigning my book 2306
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DLewis Wade 🗃️ @wadehistory.bsky.social · 03/08/2026The Rhine is so low at the moment – the land you see here would never be visible in any normal year (this photo is from Saturday), and the implications for river freight are easy to draw 2206
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DNanjala @nanjala.bsky.social · 30/07/2026A couple of months ago someone asked me “What do you think of the DJT administration’s policy on Africa?” To which I replied “what policy?” I stand by that answer. USG Africa map mislaabels every single country on a slide deck at a conference. www.reuters.com/world/africa...reuters.comUS government map of Africa mislabels every country at global conferenceA U.S. government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a State Department presentation at a global conference taking place in Brazil this week, causing a stir among attendees who took screen... 65624
Drew Flanagan Ph.D @drewflanaganphd.bsky.social · 30/07/2026Fuming that the Kremlin doesn't consider me influential enough to hack my account 040
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DCharlotte Weatherill @ckweatherill.bsky.social · 29/07/2026The point isn't to produce essays, it's to teach students how to think for fuck's sake. The minute you automate that, it's over. You might as well close the course. Which they're also doing. This is an attack on learning, and everyone is just shrugging. 221576447
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DCorinne Gressang @corinnegressang.bsky.social · 28/07/2026www.nytimes.com/2026/07/27/o...nytimes.comOpinion | If You’re Over 40, You’re Ready to Use A.I. (Gift Article)A.I. should work like this mystical Jewish practice. 111
Drew Flanagan Ph.D @drewflanaganphd.bsky.social · 27/07/2026Ready to suffer emotionally with the Historians at the Movies crew tonight! We're watching Hamnet. 1) Slightly stretching the question here, but Dorothea Brooke and Will Ladislaw 2) A Midsummer Night's Dream 3) Mostly those little mandarin oranges that come in a mesh bag #HATM 161
Drew Flanagan Ph.D @drewflanaganphd.bsky.social · 24/07/2026You have my permission to get my book, From Occupation to Integration: Recivilizing the French Zone of Post-Nazi Germany 1945-1955 (LSU Press, 2026) from the library 😉 010
Drew Flanagan Ph.D @drewflanaganphd.bsky.social · 24/07/2026Anticommunist movements see communism as more than a political movement - in many cases they see it as literally demonic, at once the expression of and equivalent to all forms of societal decadence and immorality. Hence, for example, the Lavender Scare equating gayness with Communism and treason. 162
Drew Flanagan Ph.D @drewflanaganphd.bsky.social · 23/07/2026Haven't yet read this book (big disclaimer) but I've read reviews from various ideological perspectives (including a screed from History Reclaimed). It prompted thoughts about "procolonial" and "anticolonial" scholarship, and the meaning of refuting someone like Nigel Biggar 141
Drew Flanagan Ph.D @drewflanaganphd.bsky.social · 23/07/2026Going down a rabbit hole about the notion of North Africa as "white Africa" (Afrique blanche) as opposed to sub-Saharan "black Africa" (Afrique noire). Seems tied to the idea of Eurafrica in the mid-20th c., though ambiguously. "White Africa" is a great article title free to a good home, for sure. 100
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DChris Newfield @cnewf.bsky.social · 22/07/2026Gallup-Lumina poll on college confirms that Americans are upset about the personal politics of professors--that is, 11% are concerned. Three-quarters are upset about lack of affordability. Colleges should ignore the Twitter / Atlantic debates and lower costs while heading to debt-free for all 48238
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DAsheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 18/07/2026🎯 “An elite consensus that AI-assisted learning might be fine for hoi polloi but not for future leaders at the most selective institutions cannot be far-off now“ The coming class divide on AI: tech-free learning at elite institutions, AI-centered learning everywhere else. 714859
Reposted by Drew Flanagan Ph.DRyan Boyd @ryanboyd.bsky.social · 17/07/2026We (faculty at USC) took on an institutional behemoth with all the money and clout on earth, and we WON. We won our union. We're the biggest private-university faculty union in US history. Trying to make people care about this, challenge level IMPOSSIBLE 141556278