What does the so-called zombie apocalypse of drug addiction in Kensington, a neighborhood in Philadelphia, have to do with early-modern drunkenness? Check out my latest short piece about the monstrous drunkard's "Beastly Transformations" in @contingent-mag.bsky.social.

Even though it was published online earlier this year, my recent open-access article about drunkenness and guardianship just got its formal spot in the journal (complete with volume/issue/page numbers), which gives me a chance to shamelessly plug it one more time!

Vaughn Joy (@gvaughnjoy.bsky.social) sets the bar high with the first piece in @contingent-mag.bsky.social's new article series, A Time Of Monsters. Having just watched del Toro's latest contribution, I loved the astute analysis of how his vision fits into the history of Frankenstein adaptations.

If you are a supporter and reader of @contingent-mag.bsky.social one of the biggest things you can do to help us at the moment is get this CFP to the NTT folks in your life. The fracturing of social media has made it very difficult to get the word out esp. to adjuncts and VAPs.

What do Henrietta Wiley (1880s), Britney Spears, and Wendy Williams have in common? Read more about the history of drunkenness, guardianship, and medical incarceration in my latest article in @nursingclio.bsky.social:

"Strange."

Today's article pick from Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer @davidkphd.bsky.social & @nursingclio.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

nursingclio.org/2025/10/01/t...

Took about 20 years. And I never thought a book about enslavers using deputization to give themselves policing power would be relevant to our times. But we are where we are.

My book, White Power: Policing American Slavery, is now available for preorder.

a.co/d/29c7EIP

Did you know that in the early United States, long before Britney Spears, "habitual drunkards" could lose their civil rights under guardianship? I write about the use of guardianship to police the borders of respectability and full citizenship in my latest article in the Law and History Review:

We're searching for a new Editor-in-Chief! Please see Call for Applications:
legalhistoryblog.blogspot.com/2025/08/law-...

The AHA saying historians can use AI to generate fake historical images is pretty crazy.

As I suspected, there is no scientific data to support the idea of a “dopamine hit” from engaging in enjoyable activities. As psychologist Christopher Ferguson points out, “Technology, such as video games or social media, simply doesn’t influence dopamine receptors the way illicit substances do.”

I am drinking coffee while writing about temperance. In the 1830s, temperance doctors would have considered that another form of intemperance. Fifty years later, the most ardent abolitionists supported coffeeshops as establishments that promoted temperance.

We are living in an emergent age of “machine bullshit”

According to disability historian Michael Rembis in @teenvogue.com, "Wellness farms aren’t about wellness at all. In practice, history shows us, they’re about eliminating disabled people from public life." It's always been about discipline, governance, and control.

Further proof that it's always been about discipline and control: "Shifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment will restore public order."

Incredible research and analysis in this piece. Korostyshevsky shows how guardianship doctrines "transformed the courtroom into an arena for contesting the thresholds of compulsion, policing respectable manhood, and drawing the borders of full citizenship in the nineteenth-century United States."

As an early U.S. historian interested in how guardianship works today, I find investigative journalist Diane Dimond's latest book very helpful. Legal historians, psychiatric professionals, and guardianship reform advocates alike should take a look!

Guardianship is an obscure and outdated system that often hurts the vulnerable people it was meant to protect. How did it get this way? I explore the long history of guardianship and citizenship in my latest article in the Law and History Review.

Open Access Link: doi.org/10.1017/S073...

I finally joined BlueSky!