Cameron Blevins
@cblevins.bsky.social
Digital History | US History
Professor at CU Denver
📖 Paper Trails: The US Post and the Making of the American West 📖
cblevins.github.io
Professor at CU Denver
📖 Paper Trails: The US Post and the Making of the American West 📖
cblevins.github.io
Pinned
Cameron Blevins
@cblevins.bsky.social
· Jul 16
The prize for "Article in the Fields of the History of Women/Gender/Sexualities" is awarded to Dr. Annelise Heinz and Dr. Cameron Blevins for their article:
“Separated, but far from alone”: Forging Lesbian Networks in the 1970s–1980s.” Pacific Historical Review 1 August 2024; 93 (3): 417–444.
“Separated, but far from alone”: Forging Lesbian Networks in the 1970s–1980s.” Pacific Historical Review 1 August 2024; 93 (3): 417–444.
Thrilled our article won the Berkshire Conference Article Prize for best article in the fields of the history of women, gender, and/or sexuality! Annelise and I mapped thousands of locations from the magazine Lesbian Connection to study how women built a shared community in the 1970s and 1980s 🧵
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
#dhist Join the @ihr.bsky.social Digital History seminar 20 Jan midday GMT (on Zoom) for @thomassmits.bsky.social & @melvinwevers.bsky.social on 'Orientalist pixels: How machine learning reveals the colonial color palette of early photography'. Details ⬇️ ihrdighist.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2025/09/tues...
Tuesday 20 January 2026 - Thomas Smits and Melvin Wevers (Amsterdam): Orientalist pixels: How machine learning reveals the colonial color palette of early photography - Digital History Seminar
This seminar is 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm GMT live on Zoom at https://zoom.us/j/98599080376 later posted to our YouTube channel. Session chair: Alexandra Ortolja-Baird Abstract: This talk explores how digita...
ihrdighist.blogs.sas.ac.uk
January 5, 2026 at 9:28 AM
#dhist Join the @ihr.bsky.social Digital History seminar 20 Jan midday GMT (on Zoom) for @thomassmits.bsky.social & @melvinwevers.bsky.social on 'Orientalist pixels: How machine learning reveals the colonial color palette of early photography'. Details ⬇️ ihrdighist.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2025/09/tues...
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
Eeeee, it’s nearly time for #AHA26 and I’m excited to participate in a really cool panel on evolutions of digital research! Please come! @jimambuske.bsky.social @jessedraperhnet.bsky.social @kmapesy.bsky.social @meknaak.bsky.social @emily-elliott.bsky.social
December 31, 2025 at 6:45 PM
Eeeee, it’s nearly time for #AHA26 and I’m excited to participate in a really cool panel on evolutions of digital research! Please come! @jimambuske.bsky.social @jessedraperhnet.bsky.social @kmapesy.bsky.social @meknaak.bsky.social @emily-elliott.bsky.social
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
I think this post nails the actual problem, for researchers at least—AI hallucinations would simply not be a problem in academic work if we’d not normalized citation-as-signaling rather than actual engagement—you can only cite a fake paper if you’re not in the habit of reading the papers you cite
Do not cite an academic paper unless you’ve read it
AI Is Inventing Academic Papers That Don't Exist -- And They're Being Cited in Real Journals
Academic articles from authors using large language model are creating an ecosystem of fake research that threatens human knowledge itself.
www.rollingstone.com
December 19, 2025 at 7:01 PM
I think this post nails the actual problem, for researchers at least—AI hallucinations would simply not be a problem in academic work if we’d not normalized citation-as-signaling rather than actual engagement—you can only cite a fake paper if you’re not in the habit of reading the papers you cite
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
Happy to share a recent publication in the @jdighist.bsky.social exploring how historians are applying generative AI. I argue that LLMs can be considered a new form of historical source, and source criticism can inform our critiques of these techs.
journalofdigitalhistory.org/en/article/J...
1/8
journalofdigitalhistory.org/en/article/J...
1/8
Mapping the Latent Past: Assessing Large Language Models as Digital Tools through Source Criticism
This article examines how digital historians can use large language models (LLMs) as research tools while critically assessing their limitations through source criticism of their underlying training d...
journalofdigitalhistory.org
November 11, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Happy to share a recent publication in the @jdighist.bsky.social exploring how historians are applying generative AI. I argue that LLMs can be considered a new form of historical source, and source criticism can inform our critiques of these techs.
journalofdigitalhistory.org/en/article/J...
1/8
journalofdigitalhistory.org/en/article/J...
1/8
I wrote about some of 2025's big generative AI developments and their implications for historians: multimodal generation, deep research, and handwriting transcription. In short, we need to stop dismissing this as nothing more than "autocomplete on steroids." cblevins.github.io/posts/gen-ai...
Generative AI and History in 2025 | Cameron Blevins
Personal website for Cameron Blevins, Associate Professor, Clinical Teaching Track at University of Colorado Denver
cblevins.github.io
December 19, 2025 at 5:38 PM
I wrote about some of 2025's big generative AI developments and their implications for historians: multimodal generation, deep research, and handwriting transcription. In short, we need to stop dismissing this as nothing more than "autocomplete on steroids." cblevins.github.io/posts/gen-ai...
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
🗃️ My History Department is hiring for a tenure track position in Native American history. See link for details!
jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...
jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...
Assistant or Associate Professor of History
jobs.colorado.edu
December 16, 2025 at 9:33 PM
🗃️ My History Department is hiring for a tenure track position in Native American history. See link for details!
jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...
jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
Excited to be in Luxembourg at CHR 2025 to hear about everyone’s amazing work and to share my project with @mellymeldubs.bsky.social and our team. We tracked canonical authors and texts in Seattle Public Library circulation data.
December 11, 2025 at 6:09 AM
Excited to be in Luxembourg at CHR 2025 to hear about everyone’s amazing work and to share my project with @mellymeldubs.bsky.social and our team. We tracked canonical authors and texts in Seattle Public Library circulation data.
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
“The Software Paper fills a gap for the computational and digital humanities communities...” Thank you to research software engineer extraordinaire @suttonkoeser.bsky.social for leading this initiative for Computational Humanities Research journal. Please share!
Introducing the 'Software Paper': New ways to publish on research software in Computational Humanities Research
When Lauren Tilton first approached me about joining the Computational Humanities Research (CHR) journal’s Editorial Board as an Associate Editor, the thing that made the invitation so compelling and ...
www.cambridge.org
November 26, 2025 at 2:04 PM
“The Software Paper fills a gap for the computational and digital humanities communities...” Thank you to research software engineer extraordinaire @suttonkoeser.bsky.social for leading this initiative for Computational Humanities Research journal. Please share!
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
Educators - are you building next year's lesson plans?
Discover The Panorama's list of short readings (under 1,000 words) from more than 250 authors!
Our insightful and classroom ready features are perfect for sparking discussion and enriching your syllabus. thepanorama.shear.org/contributors/
Discover The Panorama's list of short readings (under 1,000 words) from more than 250 authors!
Our insightful and classroom ready features are perfect for sparking discussion and enriching your syllabus. thepanorama.shear.org/contributors/
Contributors
Visit the post for more.
thepanorama.shear.org
November 20, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Educators - are you building next year's lesson plans?
Discover The Panorama's list of short readings (under 1,000 words) from more than 250 authors!
Our insightful and classroom ready features are perfect for sparking discussion and enriching your syllabus. thepanorama.shear.org/contributors/
Discover The Panorama's list of short readings (under 1,000 words) from more than 250 authors!
Our insightful and classroom ready features are perfect for sparking discussion and enriching your syllabus. thepanorama.shear.org/contributors/
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
Really pleased to announce the launch of the all-new, all-dancing, London Lives website - www.londonlives.org It has been thoroughly re-engineered to facilitate more types of search, and redesigned for phones and tablets. The team very much hopes peope like it. 1/
London Lives
www.londonlives.org
November 5, 2025 at 11:24 AM
Really pleased to announce the launch of the all-new, all-dancing, London Lives website - www.londonlives.org It has been thoroughly re-engineered to facilitate more types of search, and redesigned for phones and tablets. The team very much hopes peope like it. 1/
Great to see a new issue of Current Research in Digital History!
CRDH Vol. 8: New research from Fabio Gigone, Natacha Klein Käfer, Natália da Silva Perez, Nadav Borenstein, Miara Fraikin, Sanne Maekelberg, and Anna McGee explores topics from royal iconography to AI-powered print analysis, midwifery education to palace networks.
Read here: https://crdh.rrchnm.org
Read here: https://crdh.rrchnm.org
Current Research in Digital History
Hosted by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, Current Research in Digital History is an open-access, peer-reviewed, online publication. Its primary aim is to encourage and publish scholarship in digital history that offers discipline-specific arguments and interpretations.
crdh.rrchnm.org
November 5, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Great to see a new issue of Current Research in Digital History!
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
Congratulations to the winners of the Roy Rosenzweig Prize for Creativity in Digital History, Gergely Baics, Meredith Linn, Leah Meisterlin, and Myles Zhang, for their project Envisioning Seneca Village!
Explore the project: envisioningsenecavillage.github.io
Explore the project: envisioningsenecavillage.github.io
October 15, 2025 at 7:16 PM
Congratulations to the winners of the Roy Rosenzweig Prize for Creativity in Digital History, Gergely Baics, Meredith Linn, Leah Meisterlin, and Myles Zhang, for their project Envisioning Seneca Village!
Explore the project: envisioningsenecavillage.github.io
Explore the project: envisioningsenecavillage.github.io
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
As DH grows, it’s increasingly important to publish conference papers, but there hasn’t been a clear venue for that.
So I’m thrilled to share this new home for DH proceedings, which will include CHR papers & more.
Thanks to @taylor-arnold.bsky.social for leading this effort!
bit.ly/ach-anthology
So I’m thrilled to share this new home for DH proceedings, which will include CHR papers & more.
Thanks to @taylor-arnold.bsky.social for leading this effort!
bit.ly/ach-anthology
October 29, 2025 at 3:39 PM
As DH grows, it’s increasingly important to publish conference papers, but there hasn’t been a clear venue for that.
So I’m thrilled to share this new home for DH proceedings, which will include CHR papers & more.
Thanks to @taylor-arnold.bsky.social for leading this effort!
bit.ly/ach-anthology
So I’m thrilled to share this new home for DH proceedings, which will include CHR papers & more.
Thanks to @taylor-arnold.bsky.social for leading this effort!
bit.ly/ach-anthology
Kick off your morning at #WHA2025 with some spicy takes on Generative AI and history from Sean Fraga, Rachel Birch, @jasonheppler.org, @regan008.bsky.social, and myself (8:15-9:45am, Santo Domingo Room)
October 17, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Kick off your morning at #WHA2025 with some spicy takes on Generative AI and history from Sean Fraga, Rachel Birch, @jasonheppler.org, @regan008.bsky.social, and myself (8:15-9:45am, Santo Domingo Room)
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
If you're at #WHA2025 I hope you'll join @cblevins.bsky.social, @regan008.bsky.social, Rachel Birch, Sean Fraga and myself on Friday at 8:15 to talk with us about generative AI and History. I have a strong feeling I might be quite curmudgeonly, so come join us!
October 16, 2025 at 1:19 PM
If you're at #WHA2025 I hope you'll join @cblevins.bsky.social, @regan008.bsky.social, Rachel Birch, Sean Fraga and myself on Friday at 8:15 to talk with us about generative AI and History. I have a strong feeling I might be quite curmudgeonly, so come join us!
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
Excited to share my latest publication, "Generative Aesthetics: On formal stuckness in AI verse." It's published in a special issue in the Journal of Cultural Analytics, expertly edited by Tess McNulty and Laura Chapot, on "Computation and Form, Reconsidered."
culturalanalytics.org/article/1448...
culturalanalytics.org/article/1448...
Generative Aesthetics: On formal stuckness in AI verse | Published in Journal of Cultural Analytics
By Ryan Heuser. This paper examines the formal and aesthetic patterns of AI-generated poems through a series of computational experiments.
culturalanalytics.org
October 13, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Excited to share my latest publication, "Generative Aesthetics: On formal stuckness in AI verse." It's published in a special issue in the Journal of Cultural Analytics, expertly edited by Tess McNulty and Laura Chapot, on "Computation and Form, Reconsidered."
culturalanalytics.org/article/1448...
culturalanalytics.org/article/1448...
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
New issue of my newsletter: “The Library’s New Entryway” — An interface that combines the advantages of the traditional index with the power of LLMs is the path forward newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-...
The Library’s New Entryway
An interface that combines the advantages of the traditional index with the power of LLMs is the path forward
newsletter.dancohen.org
October 10, 2025 at 7:32 PM
New issue of my newsletter: “The Library’s New Entryway” — An interface that combines the advantages of the traditional index with the power of LLMs is the path forward newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-...
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
Having sat with it for a bit, I'm still struggling with this document.
The document is at once very cautious, and effusive. The text of the guidance itself is pretty good--in fact, I think they point out a lot of ways in which generative AI is a terrible thing for doing history.
The document is at once very cautious, and effusive. The text of the guidance itself is pretty good--in fact, I think they point out a lot of ways in which generative AI is a terrible thing for doing history.
The AHA has published Guiding Principles for Artificial Intelligence in History Education, offering a disciplinary approach to AI that focuses on the specific needs and challenges of history educators. 🗃️
Guiding Principles for Artificial Intelligence in History Education
These 14 foundational principles are meant to assist educators and administrators in crafting AI policies suited to local circumstances and the specific needs of students.
www.historians.org
August 6, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Having sat with it for a bit, I'm still struggling with this document.
The document is at once very cautious, and effusive. The text of the guidance itself is pretty good--in fact, I think they point out a lot of ways in which generative AI is a terrible thing for doing history.
The document is at once very cautious, and effusive. The text of the guidance itself is pretty good--in fact, I think they point out a lot of ways in which generative AI is a terrible thing for doing history.
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
Many of the places that loom largest in queer history—NYC’s Stonewall Inn, San Francisco’s Castro district—tend to focus on gay men & urban spaces. A fuller history is told by Cameron Blevins and Annelise Heinz.
@pcb-aha.bsky.social www.ucpress.edu/blog-posts/m...
@pcb-aha.bsky.social www.ucpress.edu/blog-posts/m...
Mapping Lesbian History: Q&A with Cameron Blevins and Annelise Heinz
Historians Cameron Blevins and Annelise Heinz use digital mapping technology to uncover a hidden geography of lesbian life in the 1970s and 1980s, tracing patterns of connection among lesbian women in...
www.ucpress.edu
July 30, 2025 at 8:46 PM
Many of the places that loom largest in queer history—NYC’s Stonewall Inn, San Francisco’s Castro district—tend to focus on gay men & urban spaces. A fuller history is told by Cameron Blevins and Annelise Heinz.
@pcb-aha.bsky.social www.ucpress.edu/blog-posts/m...
@pcb-aha.bsky.social www.ucpress.edu/blog-posts/m...
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
Historian Friends! @shgape.bsky.social is holding a conference next June in that great GA/PE city, Chicago!
See link to CFP below!
See link to CFP below!
July 18, 2025 at 10:31 PM
Historian Friends! @shgape.bsky.social is holding a conference next June in that great GA/PE city, Chicago!
See link to CFP below!
See link to CFP below!
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
For the @puddingviz.bsky.social, I explored which animals we gender, and why.
Come for the extremely cute interactive viz of animals, stay for the extremely nerdy etymology of the ladybug.
Story: pudding.cool/2025/07/kids...
Come for the extremely cute interactive viz of animals, stay for the extremely nerdy etymology of the ladybug.
Story: pudding.cool/2025/07/kids...
July 7, 2025 at 6:36 PM
For the @puddingviz.bsky.social, I explored which animals we gender, and why.
Come for the extremely cute interactive viz of animals, stay for the extremely nerdy etymology of the ladybug.
Story: pudding.cool/2025/07/kids...
Come for the extremely cute interactive viz of animals, stay for the extremely nerdy etymology of the ladybug.
Story: pudding.cool/2025/07/kids...
Wish I could be in Lisbon for #DH2025, but I'm glad to be able to present remotely! I'm about to share the work we've done to produce the Data Advocacy for All project - a toolkit of resources to help teach data advocacy: da4all.github.io
July 17, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Wish I could be in Lisbon for #DH2025, but I'm glad to be able to present remotely! I'm about to share the work we've done to produce the Data Advocacy for All project - a toolkit of resources to help teach data advocacy: da4all.github.io
Thrilled our article won the Berkshire Conference Article Prize for best article in the fields of the history of women, gender, and/or sexuality! Annelise and I mapped thousands of locations from the magazine Lesbian Connection to study how women built a shared community in the 1970s and 1980s 🧵
The prize for "Article in the Fields of the History of Women/Gender/Sexualities" is awarded to Dr. Annelise Heinz and Dr. Cameron Blevins for their article:
“Separated, but far from alone”: Forging Lesbian Networks in the 1970s–1980s.” Pacific Historical Review 1 August 2024; 93 (3): 417–444.
“Separated, but far from alone”: Forging Lesbian Networks in the 1970s–1980s.” Pacific Historical Review 1 August 2024; 93 (3): 417–444.
July 16, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Thrilled our article won the Berkshire Conference Article Prize for best article in the fields of the history of women, gender, and/or sexuality! Annelise and I mapped thousands of locations from the magazine Lesbian Connection to study how women built a shared community in the 1970s and 1980s 🧵
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
New preprint from @lauraknelson.bsky.social, @mattwilkens.bsky.social, and myself tests different ways of simulating the past with LLMs. We don't fully answer the title question here—just show that simple strategies based on prompting and fine-tuning are insufficient. +
Can Language Models Represent the Past without Anachronism?
Before researchers can use language models to simulate the past, they need to understand the risk of anachronism. We find that prompting a contemporary model with examples of period prose does not pro...
arxiv.org
May 2, 2025 at 12:47 PM
New preprint from @lauraknelson.bsky.social, @mattwilkens.bsky.social, and myself tests different ways of simulating the past with LLMs. We don't fully answer the title question here—just show that simple strategies based on prompting and fine-tuning are insufficient. +
Reposted by Cameron Blevins
Appreciated the opportunity to speak with @npr.org about the devastating cuts to the incredible @neh-odh.bsky.social. Why is our govt canceling grants to start an AI Center that supports our national priorities? Cutting the arts and culture programs that are fundamental to a flourishing democracy?
Where did U.S. humanities grants go? To projects from a baseball film to AI research
From AI research to historical preservation, programs funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities reach every corner of the U.S. Now the government has terminated those grants.
www.npr.org
April 10, 2025 at 7:11 PM
Appreciated the opportunity to speak with @npr.org about the devastating cuts to the incredible @neh-odh.bsky.social. Why is our govt canceling grants to start an AI Center that supports our national priorities? Cutting the arts and culture programs that are fundamental to a flourishing democracy?