iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

@cornellupress.bsky.social, I am game, let’s play #StackandSave. Just a quick selection from my home office for the #BookSky challenge—so many wonderful books to choose from!

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

Grateful for the opportunity, humbled by the quality of work out there, and energized to promote humanist perspectives on the world when we most need them! The project title is “Spoils of War: The Repatriation of Children in the post-1918 Balkans”

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National Humanities Alliance @humanitiesall.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

Today (4/3/25) we learned that DOGE has begun terminating previously awarded NEH grants. We understand this includes operating grants to the state and jurisdictional humanities councils, scholarly societies, community orgs, & individuals. Learn more & take action: nhalliance.org/federal-fund...

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Janel Comeau 🍁 @verybadllama.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

I have tariffed the penguins that are on Heard Island and which you were probably assuming did not export goods forgive me they were taking advantage of us so cunning and so cold

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

Ivan Krastev on how Europe should respond to the trumpian revolution, an appealing analysis—let’s see who the counterrevolutionaries are! www.ft.com/content/3507...

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Agata Tumiłowicz-Mazur @agatumilowicz.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

“A correspondent for Tass, the Russian state-owned news agency, briefly gained access to the Oval Office of the White House on Friday… even as Reuters and the Associated Press were barred from entering the room.” What else do you need to know? www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

washingtonpost.com

Live updates: Trump cancels news conference with Zelensky after contentious Oval Office meeting

The latest news on President Donald Trump’s return to the White House and the new Congress.

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

When I teach the Cold War, I do an exercise: I give my students a variety of primary sources and ask them, what was the point of no return? This episode will be on future syllabi, a prime example of a point of no return in the unraveling of America’s position in the global order.

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John Paul Newman @johnpaulnewman.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

Winston Churchill visiting the White House in 1942. Not wearing a suit. #SlavaUkraïni 🇺🇦

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

Europe makes me proud. This is not just rhetoric, there are moments that really bring folks together, and this is one of them.

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

“You don’t hold the cards,” says Trump. To which Zelensky responds, “We are not playing cards.” Nothing else to add, just what happens when bullies play war, call it peace, and want to make “deals” on the side.

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Elizabeth N. Saunders @profsaunders.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

It was all worth a try -- Macron, Starmer, etc. If anything this has clarified the "can NATO limp along" or "will Trump grudgingly support Ukraine" questions -- no and no. 2/

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

Looool

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Cas Mudde @casmudde.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

I celebrate the 80% of Germans who did not vote for the far right. Do not make 19.6% of German voters into "the" German people (again). "The" German people don't exist! The German population is diverse and divided, but voted overwhelmingly for liberal democratic parties. #BTW25 #GermanElection

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Thu Nguyen @onethuthree.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

Election turnout at 83,5% - highest turnout since German reunification

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

Merz just said on German TV that the primary priority of his government will be to ensure that Europe can achieve full strategic independence from the United States in the defence against Russia. Merz was once a die hard Atlanicist. Now, after Trump he is a Gaullist. Extraordinary.

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

I have personally been thinking about the concept of a “captive state” and will read this with interest.

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

Check out my colleague Elizabeth Dillenburg’s wonderful new book, Empire’s Daughters, among others below!

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ECFR @ecfr.eu · 14/02/2025

🚨 Europeans are shifting their view of the US. ECFR’s latest poll shows that most now see the US not as an “ally” but as a “necessary partner.” Even in Atlanticist strongholds like Poland & Denmark, perceptions have changed. Read the full report 👇 buff.ly/4huJpjm

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

800 written & 200+ oral testimonies against (8.5 hours) later, with barely 15 testimonies for, the GOP-controlled Senate passed it with few amendments. Frankly, I have never been more motivated to teach my students critical thinking, civil society, dissent, protest, agency, etc.

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

You can count on an Eastern European woman to call it as it is: you can’t “make a deal” announcing concessions before the negotiations begin. “Why are we giving them everything they want even before the negotiations have started? … It’s appeasement. It has never worked.”

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Commitment to “independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity” can be the only basis for peace and security in Europe, full stop.

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Relocate, transfer, displace—whitewashing ethnic cleansing, what a disgrace.

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Gov-funded humanities about to become less humane, singling out “accessibility” and “justice” in addition to gender and DEI as ineligible for funding.

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Some words from those years that are becoming increasingly relevant: Loyalist Apparatchik Purges Ideological diversion Party line

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

Spent 4 hours listening to testimony ag Senate Bill #1 that imposes ideological control on higher ed in Ohio (don’t teach “controversial topics”, folks!). So heartened by the courage of my students & colleagues! In these turbulent times, find your cause & pour your heart in it.

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Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

Just to say the quiet part out loud, the point of having unelected judges in a democracy is so that *whether* acts of state are “legitimate” can be decided by someone other than the people who are undertaking them. Vermeule knows this, of course. So does Vance.

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

Humanities research has been on the chopping board since 2008, undermining the core of American liberal arts education, the envy of the world. Make no mistake, tech bros are a direct outcome of such policies.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

JFK speaking about USAID in June 1962: “The people who are opposed to aid should realize that this is a very powerful source of strength for us. It permits us to exert influence for the maintenance of freedom. If we were not so heavily involved, our voice would not speak with such vigor.”

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

Keep doing our work with our students and our communities sounds right.

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University of Pittsburgh Press @upittpress.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Rather than reduce the Gaza Strip to an arena of war and violence, Abreek-Zubiedat resurrects the urban and architectural history of Gaza’s cities and the varied perspectives and identities of the people who shaped them. A Territory in Conflict is out next month upittpress.org/books/978082...

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

And just like that, my area of the world is relevant again.

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Adam Przeworski @adamprz.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

When I was growing up in Poland, the communist government banned the word "elite" (because it was used by Djilas) and "bureaucracy" (because it was used by Trotsky.h

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

This seems like a good day to bump this Starter Pack for University Presses.

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

This is so chilling for academic freedom. And I don’t know that the average person realizes what vigorous processes academic publishing involves—to then have your work essentially banned reverberates across the academic universe.

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Austin McCoy @austinmccoy.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

You can't kill Black history. It doesn't how hard they try. You can drive it underground but can't stop people from seeking knowledge, building consciousness, exercising political imagination, and acting collectively. Good luck with that.

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Andrea Pitzer @andreapitzer.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

And I posted this once today, but I'll add it again here, because most people don't seem to realize that Guantanamo has hosted mass detention for immigrants before, with some very grim results. And that history is a key part of how it wound up used for torture and other inhumane ends after 9/11.

thedailybeast.com

Gitmo Started as a Detention Camp for Immigrants

From the Bolshevik Revolution to 9/11, mass detention starts as a temporary measure and becomes an indefinite nightmare.

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Andrea Pitzer @andreapitzer.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

I spent so much ink on Gitmo in my book about concentration camps because it was clear that by failing to eliminate detention there, this is where we've been headed for decades. What the US has already done is horrific, and in an unconstitutional no-man's-land, we face the possibility of much worse.

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Auschwitz Memorial @auschwitzmemorial.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

Auschwitz was at the end of a long process. It did not start from gas chambers. This hatred was gradually developed by humans. From ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder. Auschwitz took time.

A bird's-eye view of a former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp showing a wide dirt pathway flanked by parallel rows of barbed-wire fences. Groups of visitors walk along the path, surrounded by the remnants of brick structures and barracks, now reduced to foundations. Green grass contrasts with the somber history of the site, as the path leads toward a guard tower in the distance.

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Eleanor Paynter @eleanorbpaynter.net · 26/01/2025

Here's my recent @bordercrim.bsky.social piece about the issues surrounding the Albania/Italy case & questions human rights Qs it raises. In particular, this case illustrates how normalized border externalization processes have become in Europe / global north 2/ blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/border-crimi...

blogs.law.ox.ac.uk

Externalized Asylum Processing, So-Called Safe Countries, and the Uncertain Future of the Italy-Albania Protocol

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Dr. S. Deborah Kang @kangborderlaw.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Coming in May! We've been working on this project for several years now and are delighted that it will soon be out in the world! Many thanks to our contributors, our series editors, & Univ. of Ill. Press! For more information, see: www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p0...

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Nicolas Lambert @neocarto.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

By compiling multiple sources of data, we reach the astonishing figure of 71,000 migrants who have died or been missing at the European border since the early 90s. A hecatomb caused by the migration policies of European countries.

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

It boggles the mind, right? “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order. Frankly, I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar would state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It just boggles my mind.” Judge John C. Coughenour, blocking EO on citizenship.

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BladeoftheSun @bladeofthes.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Banksy drops another bomb.

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

This book arrived in the mail today: I bought it to think through a very specific research question, but how indeed do we think and act in liquid times of endemic uncertainty?

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Vanda Wilcox @vandawilcox.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

New OA article out now in First World War Studies! #fwwhist a comparative examination of European royal visits to the front lines in the FWW - a fascinating look at how the war challenged assumptions about royalty & relations between monarchs & their subjects www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

tandfonline.com

Visiting War: Royal Journeys to the Front in the First World War

In the First World War, royal visits to the front were important events for the cohesion of warring societies and the legitimation of European monarchies. As heads of state and (nominal) supreme co...

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Maria Popova @popovaprof.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

👀👀

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

French colonial troops on the Macedonian front in 1917.

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Theodora Dragostinova @theodorad.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

On citizenship, again & again, until it sticks: Mr. Trump’s attempt to limit birthright citizenship via EO is “extraordinary and extreme” … “Presidents are powerful, but he is not a king. He cannot rewrite the Constitution with a stroke of the pen.” www.nytimes.com/2025/01/21/u...

nytimes.com

18 States Sue to Stop Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order

The lawsuit to block the president’s executive order is the first salvo in what is likely to be a long-running legal fight over immigration policy.

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Bethany Wasik @bethanywasik.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

ICYMI: A wonderful H-War review of @nicoleeaton.bsky.social's "German Blood, Slavic Soil," wonderfully noted as "supremely well-written and masterful" by @susangrunewald.bsky.social: networks.h-net.org/group/review... ICYMI2: @cornellupress.bsky.social: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

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Chris Manias @chrismanias.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

"Palaeontology in Public: Popular Science, Lost Creatures and Deep Time" is out today, and is freely downloadable as an open access pdf, published by @uclpress.bsky.social ! uclpress.co.uk/book/palaeon... 🎺🦕🦕🦕⚒️🎥🦖🦖🦖📖📰🦣🦣🦣🎺

A book cover, featuring the text "Palaeontology in Public: Popular Science, Lost Creatures and Deep Time. Edited by Chris Manias." The cover image depicts a large long-necked Sauropod dinosaur, modelled after the famous animation "Gertie the Dinosaur" in a park, with a city skyline in the background. A range of humans are standing around Gertie, pointing at and admiring her. There is also a man in a ringmaster outfit standing on Gertie's shoulder.

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