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Jonathon Catlin

@joncatlin.bsky.social
1.4K followers 752 following 320 posts

Intellectual history, German & Jewish studies, climate catastrophe | Visiting Assistant Professor of History @urochester.bsky.social | PhD from Princeton | Edit @jhideas.bsky.social | Rochester • NYC • Berlin 🏳️‍🌈 rochester.academia.edu/JonathonCatl…

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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
My professor office is finally coming together! It features posters from the events I organized at our Humanities Center the past few years. Adorno and Benjamin get to look after my French Horn, which after 15 years (!) collecting dust I'm now playing in our University Symphony.
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
In today's reading for my department's introduction to historical methods course 🙂‍↕️
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Today at NYU’s Remarque Institute, Susan Neiman presented her new @wwnorton.com book on “evil” in the Trump era, a guide to the present inspired by Arendt’s thesis of the banality of evil. “In [our] culture,” she argues, “the greatest evil is not sadism but the idea that morality is for losers.”
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Boy, would I have loved to see Leni Riefenstahl sit down for a little chat with Walter Benjamin…
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I lolled! cunooz.com/2026/09/09/e...
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Same! Always right by the river
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
The reaction of conservatives every time their austerity reliably produces fascist reaction:
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Excited to see Susan Neiman present her new book on Trump and Evil at NYU’s Remarque Institute in a few weeks. Historians have tired of debating “fascism,” but I wonder if this book might activate a similar debate about “evil” among philosophers. Registration link: us.list-manage.com/CQEKCSTMFq8
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
"Bourgeois society is ruled by equivalence. It makes dissimilar things comparable by reducing them to abstract quantities."
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Glad to share my review of Andreas Malm's provocative short book on Palestine and climate catastrophe, which explores connections between two seemingly unrelated "nakbas" (Arabic for catastrophe) on both historical-material and political-metaphorical levels. PDF below. @versobooks.bsky.social
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Highly recommend the new exhibition at Spore Berlin on colonial exploitation, genocide, environmental degradation, and ongoing extraction in the former German colony in Namibia—a collab between Forensic Architecture and indigenous artists, scholars, and activists www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Got to see the brilliant @triofrancos.bsky.social present her book *Extraction* in Berlin for the launch of the German edition from @suhrkamp.de
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
The star of the Deutsches Historisches Museum’s exhibition on "Nature in German History": die Kartoffel / der Erdapfel
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Excellent event in Berlin tonight launching the conference volume “Hijacking Memory,” ft. Emily Dische-Becker, Susan Neiman, Stefanie Schüler-Springorum, & Gilbert Achcar, who all condemned the abuse of Holocaust memory for authoritarian ends from Germany, to the U.S., to Israel
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Today @ktbberlin.bsky.social: "Crisis and Transformation" ft. Dipesh Chakrabarty et al. Rahel Jaeggi: “We are no longer in an age of crisis but an age of catastrophe.” The aim is to convert (1st order) catastrophes into (2nd order) crises amenable to collective problem-solving & learning processes.
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
The American mind cannot comprehend
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Great to catch Johannes von Moltke speak in Berlin today on America’s rightward drift, including the 1619 vs 1776 Projects; anti-intellectual campaigns against universities; and the online propaganda outlet PragerU as a right-wing populist alternative to the overpriced university
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Berlin till June 11 🥨 Sag Hallöschen! June 4-5 Critical Theory in Berlin conference “Crisis and Trnasformation”; June 8 Hijacking Memory launch at Roter Salon; June 9-10 conference “Assessing the State of Holocaust Studies”; and stay tuned for a smaller event in the works on German Holocaust memory
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Visited the staggering 1984 brutalist Monument to the Victims of Nazism at the Ninth Fort near Kaunas, Lithuania. It memorializes the 50k people the Nazis murdered here, around 30k of them Jews, and 9,200 of those from the Kovno Ghetto shot into mass graves here on a single day, 29 October 1941.
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
It took some hunting, but I located the plaque memorializing the birthplace of Emmanuel Levinas in Kaunas, Lithuania
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
If I keep eating this for every meal I think I’m going to turn into a Barbie 💅🏼
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Just visited Albert Street in Riga, Latvia, renowned for its art nouveau (Jugendstil) architecture, and learned that Isaiah Berlin was born in this extravagantly ornamented building designed by the Russian-Jewish architect Mikhail Eisenstein, father of the famed Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein.
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Just visited Albert Street in Riga, Latvia, renowned for its art nouveau (Jugendstil) architecture, and learned that Isaiah Berlin was born in this extravagantly ornamented building designed by the Russian-Jewish architect Mikhail Eisenstein, father of the famed Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein.
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Slavoj Žižek: "[W]hat we are getting with Trump today is not fascism with a liberal mask, but liberalism brought to its (fascist) conclusion, to the actualization of its hidden immanent potentials." www.bloomsbury.com/us/liberal-f...
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Concluding slide for a conference presentation on Trump’s philosophy of history 💯
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Wonderful keynote by Aleida Assmann to open the 2026 INTH conference in Tallinn, Estonia, on Germany’s shifting temporal regimes since 1945, from forgetting and erasure of the Nazi past to the rise of memory culture and the persistence of the past as a traumatic burden—with some analogies to the US
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Great interview with Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins on the state of intellectual history and the perils of excessive focus on “knowing your enemy” through analysis of Trump and the right at the expense of building left futures and progressive alternatives. www.theideasletter.org/essay/intell...
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Oh great. Luckily @dwallacewells.bsky.social always keeps his doom radar switched on: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/06/o...
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
$10 says the consulting fees paid to McKinsey are higher than the cost of the academic programs being slashed www.post-gazette.com/news/educati...
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
Glad to have seen Peter Gordon launch his elegant short intellectual biography of Walter Benjamin today in NYC. Its literary style charms on every page, and it answers some central enigmas of his life. Some "pearls" from the book subtweeted below. @yalepress.bsky.social @jewishlives.bsky.social
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Germany has had its thumb on Israel’s side of the scale since reparations began in 1952 (then as now largely weapons used for war crimes). The land of genocidal Staatsräson could never be a fair mediator for the conflict. Fanciful and dangerously unrealistic proposal. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/22/b...
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
Quite the choice of words!
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Was just rocked to my soul by the oratory of UBuffalo Professor Henry-Louis Taylor in a keynote on reclaiming urban planning from racial capitalist wealth accumulation and gentrification, and then he mentioned his daughter….. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. Now I get it!
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Awesome to have Rochester Mayor Malik Evans open our symposium on Climate Havens today at the @urochester.bsky.social Humanities Center!
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Next week I'm glad to be responding to Seyla Benhabib's recent book on critical theory and law at NYU's Remarque Institute. RSVP required: as.nyu.edu/research-cen...
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
“There is nothing innocuous left… Even the blossoming tree lies the moment its bloom is seen without the shadow of terror; even the innocent 'How lovely!' becomes an excuse for an existence outrageously unlovely.” - Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Excited for this event next week on climate havens—zones of refuge for climate migrants as vulnerable places become unlivable—including the Great Lakes region and Western NY. A collaboration between @urochester.bsky.social Humanities Center and RIT. Details here: events.rochester.edu/event/humani...
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Interesting speculation from Stuart Jeffries prompted by Peter Gordon's new biography of Walter Benjamin. Contra Adorno, perhaps Benjamin might have found some "pearls" in American culture worth redeeming. @jewishlives.bsky.social @yalepress.bsky.social @financialtimes.com www.ft.com/content/8484...
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Oof! www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/hab...
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Not generally the biggest fan of Stanley's "fascism"-mongering, but here his evocation of Soviet totalitarianism to characterize the artificiality of contemporary obedience and consent with regard to Israel seems apt: substack.com/home/post/p-...
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
The conclusion of Omer Bartov’s forthcoming book, Israel: What Went Wrong?: “One can only wish Zionism had been transcended—historicized, liberalized, and universalized—when the time was right, eight decades ago.” @fsgbooks.bsky.social
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
I'm delighted to share my new publication on "Koselleck as Critical Catastrophist" in the volume "History in Conflict: Contributions to the Historicization of Reinhart Koselleck," edited by Falko Schmieder. The entire book is available here open-access: www.wallstein-open-library.de/978383536053...
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
Good day to go, I guess
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
It's remarkable in this moment—when the US is destroying the rules-based international order with brute force and toxic plumes over Tehran are poisoning millions—to come upon this passage from Pankaj Mishra's *From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia* (2012):
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
This webinar on theories of time looks fascinating! Today at 4pm EST. Ft. Nitzan Lebovic, Michael Rothberg, Ethan Kleinberg, and more. humanitiesctr.cas.lehigh.edu/events/zoom-...
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
Cautionary tales
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
As I am always saying…
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
While the US was defunding universities, China was synthesizing food from the air! Zhejiang University, which now tops Harvard in research output, only broke into the top 100 universities in 2017. Truly a meteoric rise. The 21st century does not belong to the U.S. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/u...
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Jonathon Catlin @joncatlin.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
These photos from New Year's Eve 1989 in Berlin, two months after the wall came down, capture the fashion of wearing Palestinian keffiyehs on parts of the German left in the '70s and '80s. A forgotten history, and perhaps also the origins of the Antideutsch critique? Source: The Berliner Magazine
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