I teach U.S. history & labor studies at a public university in California. First 40 years in the Midwest. Posting personal opinions about labor & migration history, worker organizing, higher ed policy, Midwest politics and regionalism. He/him.
Great conversation about worker strikes and protests w/ folks at @laboraction.bsky.social. While strikes have not returned to pre-1980 scale, more strikes lately aimed at gaining new wins rather than protecting what we have. Also, turns out California leads the country in strike and worker protests
Episode 69 - Talking Strikes w/the Labor Action Tracker TeamPodcast Episode · Reinventing Solidarity · June 25 · 39mpodcasts.apple.comProposed rules in Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will hit all federal grant programs. Universities will be hammered, but also local government, Medicaid, rural communities.
Judy StoneNew: How The OMB Rule Will Hurt You And Your Town via @forbes www.forbes.com/sites/judyst... #OMB #FederalGrants #Medicaid #Rural #DEI #disparities #race #DrugAbuse #MentalHealth @DefendPublicHealh
A contrarian view on AI trashing the Humanities: the combo of student backlash and employer demand for skills that can’t be automated could drive demand for our kind of teaching. An enterprising Dean may wish to get ahead of the curve. Another post from @cnewf.bsky.social’s Remaking blog
How to Make AI Good for the Humanities (Guest Post)Banff, Alberta back country on June 5, 2026 This is the third of the talks from the CHCI panel, "The Humanities We Can Build Right Now" in...utotherescue.blogspot.comIf you liked this post, read all the posts on @cnewf.bsky.social’s site and check out @asheeshks.org’s newsletter where, I assume, Asheesh will help us figure out who comprises the “NEH in exile”… asheeshksi.substack.com
Cultural Knowledge | SubstackHistory prof writing on the politics of culture, knowledge, and higher education. Click to read Cultural Knowledge, a Substack publication.asheeshksi.substack.comToby Higbie”We need to be talking to the administration in exile,” says @asheeshks.org. Defunding of humanities and interpretive social sciences has been a bi-partisan campaign. Now we need to build real political support for our vision of fully funded higher education funding.
”We need to be talking to the administration in exile,” says @asheeshks.org. Defunding of humanities and interpretive social sciences has been a bi-partisan campaign. Now we need to build real political support for our vision of fully funded higher education funding.
Asheesh Kapur SiddiqueMany thanks to @cnewf.bsky.social for publishing my remarks at the CICH Conference in Banff last week on building political support for rebuilding our humanities research infrastructure. This was all before the Vandy report but feels even more urgent now. utotherescue.blogspot.com/2026/06/we-n...
Beatrice Lumpkin, daughter of immigrant radicals and stalwart of progressive movements has passed at 107. I had the pleasure to meet Bea and her husband Frank in 2004 during the "Outspoken" exhibition at the Newberry. She was very generous and encouraging. chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2...
Beatrice Lumpkin, workers’ rights leader and 'rock of the movement,' dies at 107Lumpkin was a lifelong communist who fought for workers and social justice.chicago.suntimes.comAs Chicago's Broadview 6 case falls apart, Feds charge Minnesota activists with felony conspiracy for actions during the federal occupation of Minneapolis/St. Paul. Union members among those arrested are charged with participating in worker assemblies organized by labor unions
Workday MagazineMinnesota Trade Unionists Among Those Targeted in Federal Indictments of ICE Observers “I think this is intended to make workers shy away from being vociferous in their opposition to state sponsored violence.” by @sarahlazare.bsky.social and @radicalamy.bsky.social
Winning elections in 2026 and 2028 isn't enough, say @stephenlerner.bsky.social and @josephamccartin.bsky.social. Corporate power backing Trump will simply regroup behind newly empowered Dems. They call on unions to lead expansive coalitions to take the fight beyond the ballot box
In These TimesSurviving the Trump era is not enough. @stephenlerner.bsky.social and @josephamccartin.bsky.social argue that unions must rebuild their capacity for collective action, challenge the corporations profiting from authoritarianism and organize for a different future.
Which way for labor? Which way for democracy? A union strategist and a labor historian point to the labor/community coalitions that took on ICE in Minnesota as the model for reclaiming democracy and reviving the power of workers inthesetimes.com/article/resi...
How Resisting Trumpism Could Revive the U.S. Labor MovementThe array of attacks on democracy and workers’ rights presents an opportunity to expand labor’s power—if unions are willing to seize it.inthesetimes.comStinging critique of higher ed administrators who deploy "AI centrism" to justify blowing millions on AI chat bot contracts that are causing "chaos" across campus. Relevant beyond the CSU system
AAUP"The AI-centrist framing of 'responsible use' does not constitute a legitimate plan to protect the university and its students against the potential harms of this technology. Nor does it address the social and environmental impacts of creating and operating large language models."
History vibes and "uncritical fabulations." Scholars analyzed 1,000 LLM responses to queries about the Holocaust, confirming in great detail what many feel upon reading suspected AI slop. A brilliant research project digitalmemorydialogues.com/editions/dia...
Digital Memory Dialoguesdigitalmemorydialogues.comWorkers at LA's SoFi Stadium may strike during the World Cup. Workers want protections against ICE raids and surveillance, subcontracting of work associated with luxury sky boxes, and more. laist.com/news/sofi-st...
SoFi Stadium workers are voting on whether to authorize a strike during World CupWorkers are concerned about ICE's presence at the tournament. They're also pushing for more pay.laist.comSome interesting thoughts on Pope Leo’s recent encyclical and the atproto/fediverse world: “The protocol world has been trying to solve the problem of how to leave, and the next step is working on how we can stay together.”
Laurensso it turns out the new papal encyclical has a pretty good diagnosis of why the fediverse and the atmosphere keep struggling to govern themselves. guess were doing catholic theology in a protocol blog now connectedplaces.online/reports/fr16...
New metaphor: AI as a weed growing in spaces that have been neglected. That tracks in higher education, although the spaces are less neglected than strangled by austerity or conquered by ed tech. But point is we need to cultivate healthy ecosystems to keep the weeds out
ali alkhatibi've been thinking about the work we're doing at varying levels to organize against AI, and maybe i've also been in the headspace of gardening and getting rid of weeds. i can't shake the feeling that AI takes up space opportunistically where people's needs are not being met. a little like weeds.
An overlooked factor in US labor history: organized employers strategically deployed resource to arm police and/or paramilitaries against worker organizing. One of many reasons state intervention or indifference has been so consequential in success or failure of union drives
Erik LoomisThe committee found that the companies had spent $40,000 on weapons for the police. Between 1933 and 1937, the Little Steel companies purchased more poison gas (nausea-inducing rather than fatal) than the U.S. military.
State and employer violence against union workers was frighteningly common before the mid-20th century. A thread on the Memorial Day Massacre in Chicago, 1937 🧵👇
Erik LoomisThis Day in Labor History: May 30, 1937. Chicago police opened fire on strikers in front of the Republic Steel mill, killing 10 workers. Let's talk about the Little Steel Strike and the Memorial Day Massacre, the last major event of murderous anti-union state violence in the US!
If you're in L.A. June 10, I'll be on a panel on the "Future of History in the Age of A.I." at @wendemuseum.bsky.social with Saadia Gabriel, Cindy Anh Nguyen, and David Myers. Join us to discover whether history will still matter when we achieve AGI. wendemuseum.org/event/ai-his...
The Future of History in the Age of A.I. - Wende MuseumWhat will history look like in the age of AI? Who will decide what is true? Whose memory survives, and whose is lost?wendemuseum.orgOutrageous to see the UC’s commitment to life long learning turned into an extractive enterprise. We’ll see more of this as UC campus administrators look for liquidity during budget austerity. The pressure is on to generate cash flows outside state budgets. A must-read for UC faculty
Trevor GriffeyUnregulated extension and continuing education programs are ripe for abuse -- teacher exploitation, ripping off students, and corruption. Check the @ucirvine.bsky.social example to see why we need to regulate and in some cases abolish these programs. utotherescue.blogspot.com/2026/05/from...