Erik B. Alexander
@erikalexander.bsky.social
Associate Professor of American history at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. UVa PhD. Father of 2 boys, dog person, University of Illinois sports fanatic. Opinions are my own.
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
Look, requiring four letters at the time of application is whack. (Inspired by one job ad in particular, but also evergreen advice for all the hiring committees out there.)
November 20, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Look, requiring four letters at the time of application is whack. (Inspired by one job ad in particular, but also evergreen advice for all the hiring committees out there.)
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
Hey historians and digital humanists, in light of the AHA’s AIgate, here are a few ways I approach AI in the classroom. Feel free to add your own! These are in the context of digital humanities courses deeply rooted in history, literature, and tech/data ethics.
#DigitalHumanities #AHA #Skystorians 🗃️
#DigitalHumanities #AHA #Skystorians 🗃️
August 6, 2025 at 12:56 PM
Hey historians and digital humanists, in light of the AHA’s AIgate, here are a few ways I approach AI in the classroom. Feel free to add your own! These are in the context of digital humanities courses deeply rooted in history, literature, and tech/data ethics.
#DigitalHumanities #AHA #Skystorians 🗃️
#DigitalHumanities #AHA #Skystorians 🗃️
I abandoned the AHA long ago over its inaction as the historical profession burned to the ground, and this only reinforces that decision.
The problems with such an uncritical approach to AI are too numerous to count, and demonstrate a profound unawareness of how generative AI works.
The problems with such an uncritical approach to AI are too numerous to count, and demonstrate a profound unawareness of how generative AI works.
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 7:09 PM
I abandoned the AHA long ago over its inaction as the historical profession burned to the ground, and this only reinforces that decision.
The problems with such an uncritical approach to AI are too numerous to count, and demonstrate a profound unawareness of how generative AI works.
The problems with such an uncritical approach to AI are too numerous to count, and demonstrate a profound unawareness of how generative AI works.
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
Apparently historical images are now based on vibes and historical writing can be conducted through hallucinatory autocomplete plagiarism machines. You could, instead, support historians and the important work they do. As a historian and archivist, I’m appalled by this “guidance”
August 5, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Apparently historical images are now based on vibes and historical writing can be conducted through hallucinatory autocomplete plagiarism machines. You could, instead, support historians and the important work they do. As a historian and archivist, I’m appalled by this “guidance”
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
When did we go from not letting students cite Wikipedia because it was "unreliable" to endorsing LLMs that aggregate info from sources without critical perspective, are environmentally destructive, promote plagiarism, prevent learning critical skills, and are FAR less reliable than wiki?
August 6, 2025 at 1:58 AM
When did we go from not letting students cite Wikipedia because it was "unreliable" to endorsing LLMs that aggregate info from sources without critical perspective, are environmentally destructive, promote plagiarism, prevent learning critical skills, and are FAR less reliable than wiki?
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
A funny thing is that "how would they treat a Democratic President in the same situation" thing is totally hypothetical because all the huge market crashes in my lifetime happened under Republicans.
April 6, 2025 at 3:25 PM
A funny thing is that "how would they treat a Democratic President in the same situation" thing is totally hypothetical because all the huge market crashes in my lifetime happened under Republicans.
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
The Journal of the Civil War Era will have a special issue on political economy edited by me, @maggor.bsky.social, Sofia Valeonti & Nicolas Barreyre. I'll post again when the link is up on the Muster, but wanted to get the word out now. See CFP. Submission deadline is April 25. 🗃️
March 20, 2025 at 3:47 PM
The Journal of the Civil War Era will have a special issue on political economy edited by me, @maggor.bsky.social, Sofia Valeonti & Nicolas Barreyre. I'll post again when the link is up on the Muster, but wanted to get the word out now. See CFP. Submission deadline is April 25. 🗃️
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
1/🧵 Judges across ideological lines are ruling against Trump at strikingly similar rates (84% liberal, 86% centrist, 82% conservative). This isn't partisan opposition to Trump—it's the judiciary functioning as intended by cutting across partisan lines to uphold the Constitution.
March 18, 2025 at 9:32 PM
1/🧵 Judges across ideological lines are ruling against Trump at strikingly similar rates (84% liberal, 86% centrist, 82% conservative). This isn't partisan opposition to Trump—it's the judiciary functioning as intended by cutting across partisan lines to uphold the Constitution.
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
Every war in which the United States lost American blood is quickly losing all meaning. What our men and women have always risked death to protect is what our traitorous POTUS gave away freely today.
February 28, 2025 at 11:05 PM
Every war in which the United States lost American blood is quickly losing all meaning. What our men and women have always risked death to protect is what our traitorous POTUS gave away freely today.
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
A blast from the past (2023)
January 31, 2025 at 12:17 AM
A blast from the past (2023)
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
The US Constitution does not grant the President this unilateral authority.
In Illinois, we will stand against unlawful actions that would harm millions of working families, children, and seniors.
In Illinois, we will stand against unlawful actions that would harm millions of working families, children, and seniors.
White House pauses all federal grants, sparking confusion
The Trump administration has put a hold on all federal financial grants and loans, affecting tens of billions of dollars in payments.
www.washingtonpost.com
January 28, 2025 at 5:16 AM
The US Constitution does not grant the President this unilateral authority.
In Illinois, we will stand against unlawful actions that would harm millions of working families, children, and seniors.
In Illinois, we will stand against unlawful actions that would harm millions of working families, children, and seniors.
Yes yes yes this this this many thousands times over.
I have a little plea and it's this: please keep posting about things that aren't The Horrors. I am not saying to not look at or be informed about The Horrors. What I am saying—what I am genuinely kind of begging you to do—is keep posting about books and movies and sunsets and pets and joy. Please.
January 25, 2025 at 6:56 AM
Yes yes yes this this this many thousands times over.
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
Please stop using “revisionist history” as a stand-in for falsehoods.
Any worthwhile work of history uses untapped sources, novel methodologies and/or new connections across fields to improve, alter and, yes, revise our understanding of history.
Truly revisionist history is a *good* thing.
Any worthwhile work of history uses untapped sources, novel methodologies and/or new connections across fields to improve, alter and, yes, revise our understanding of history.
Truly revisionist history is a *good* thing.
January 16, 2025 at 3:02 AM
Please stop using “revisionist history” as a stand-in for falsehoods.
Any worthwhile work of history uses untapped sources, novel methodologies and/or new connections across fields to improve, alter and, yes, revise our understanding of history.
Truly revisionist history is a *good* thing.
Any worthwhile work of history uses untapped sources, novel methodologies and/or new connections across fields to improve, alter and, yes, revise our understanding of history.
Truly revisionist history is a *good* thing.
This is top notch detective work and a great example of how the game of historical “telephone” works, and how completely invented fabrications eventually shape and become reality.
I did a bit of newspaper research on the prayer that Mike Johnson falsely ascribed to Thomas Jefferson on the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday. The story of how that prayer came to be inaccurately associated with Jefferson and then became a meme is pretty wild.
This is the earliest attribution of that prayer to Jefferson that I've come across so far. It's from a 1953 publication of a Christian Identity publication (Christian Identity is an explicitly white supremacist and antisemitic theology). www.google.com/books/editio...
January 4, 2025 at 6:20 PM
This is top notch detective work and a great example of how the game of historical “telephone” works, and how completely invented fabrications eventually shape and become reality.
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
Oof not everything is digitized and quick word searches are no substitute for archival research. Method shows when one reads books and articles.
December 29, 2024 at 5:23 PM
Oof not everything is digitized and quick word searches are no substitute for archival research. Method shows when one reads books and articles.
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
hey bluesky, in case anyone's interested, I wrote this for my students about why I don't want them to use anything AI in my classes. It interrupts the course calendar part of the syllabus, coming immediately after the first day there's a writing assignment assigned.
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
A note on AI usage
A note on AI usage I genuinely want you to succeed in this class. One of my very favorite things about my job as a professor is when students are succeeding and I feel like I helped. I want you to suc...
docs.google.com
December 12, 2024 at 2:25 AM
hey bluesky, in case anyone's interested, I wrote this for my students about why I don't want them to use anything AI in my classes. It interrupts the course calendar part of the syllabus, coming immediately after the first day there's a writing assignment assigned.
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
🗃️ Friends, check out the @richardscenter.bsky.social CFA for the Mark & Ann Persun Visiting Scholar's Program, this cycle in Civil War Era political history. This fellowship is designed for mid-career scholars & does not require relocation. Apps due Feb 15, 2025. Details below; email or DM w/ Qs.
December 3, 2024 at 11:22 PM
🗃️ Friends, check out the @richardscenter.bsky.social CFA for the Mark & Ann Persun Visiting Scholar's Program, this cycle in Civil War Era political history. This fellowship is designed for mid-career scholars & does not require relocation. Apps due Feb 15, 2025. Details below; email or DM w/ Qs.
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
the frenzy over the hunter biden pardon is a good reminder that the press knows how to make something a scandal and has decided that nothing trump does is truly deserving of that treatment
December 3, 2024 at 1:41 PM
the frenzy over the hunter biden pardon is a good reminder that the press knows how to make something a scandal and has decided that nothing trump does is truly deserving of that treatment
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
The Chronicle frequently does this self-flagelating trash, but this one is especially infuriating in our contemporary context. We're living in a world where multiple states are banning whole disciplines and subdisciplines for political reasons utterly detached from reality, and this feeds them.
November 26, 2024 at 3:24 PM
The Chronicle frequently does this self-flagelating trash, but this one is especially infuriating in our contemporary context. We're living in a world where multiple states are banning whole disciplines and subdisciplines for political reasons utterly detached from reality, and this feeds them.
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
If an echo chamber is a kind group of folks who share your interests and won't constantly bombard you with petulant argumentative bullshit, then yeah. I’m super down for this echo chamber
November 25, 2024 at 4:31 AM
If an echo chamber is a kind group of folks who share your interests and won't constantly bombard you with petulant argumentative bullshit, then yeah. I’m super down for this echo chamber
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
it's frankly pretty hurtful. faculty are just people trying to get a job done and in the lounge (if there is one) we're probably just eating lunch or exchanging ideas about how to get our students to do the reading, or figure out which form we need to fill out today.
Should probably just let this go, but again, look around, in FL, TX, & soon in Washington. The GOP is mounting a frontal assault on higher education, & the would-be leading lights in the Democratic Party are busy using "the faculty lounge" as a punch line. It's so woefully inadequate to the moment.
I agree with most of this. But first, once again, let's simply consign the "faculty lounge" nonsense to the dustbin of history, along with its longtime proponent, James Carville:
bsky.app/profile/mcop...
bsky.app/profile/mcop...
November 24, 2024 at 11:01 PM
it's frankly pretty hurtful. faculty are just people trying to get a job done and in the lounge (if there is one) we're probably just eating lunch or exchanging ideas about how to get our students to do the reading, or figure out which form we need to fill out today.
There is a LOT that is infuriating about this November 18 @chronicle.com op-ed--including its flawed premise, hyperbole, and numerous straw man arguments--but let me highlight a couple of specific points that are particularly outrageous.
www.chronicle.com/article/we-a...
www.chronicle.com/article/we-a...
Opinion | We Asked for It
The politicization of research, hiring, and teaching made professors sitting ducks.
www.chronicle.com
November 22, 2024 at 7:18 PM
There is a LOT that is infuriating about this November 18 @chronicle.com op-ed--including its flawed premise, hyperbole, and numerous straw man arguments--but let me highlight a couple of specific points that are particularly outrageous.
www.chronicle.com/article/we-a...
www.chronicle.com/article/we-a...
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
It's fine to argue that Reconstruction didn't go far enough, but make sure to place it in historical context. Five years before the end of the war the Dred Scott ruling was law of the land. Few white Americans in 1860 could have anticipated the end of slavery and freedom for four million Americans.🗃️
November 19, 2024 at 12:01 AM
It's fine to argue that Reconstruction didn't go far enough, but make sure to place it in historical context. Five years before the end of the war the Dred Scott ruling was law of the land. Few white Americans in 1860 could have anticipated the end of slavery and freedom for four million Americans.🗃️
Come work with me! I’m pleased to actually share a tenure-track job in African diaspora, Afro-Caribbean, and Afro-Latin history. The hire will be involved in our innovative CODES program, but will be full time tenure-track in history. Feel free to DM with any questions:
www.siue.edu/employment/c...
www.siue.edu/employment/c...
www.siue.edu
November 17, 2024 at 11:23 PM
Come work with me! I’m pleased to actually share a tenure-track job in African diaspora, Afro-Caribbean, and Afro-Latin history. The hire will be involved in our innovative CODES program, but will be full time tenure-track in history. Feel free to DM with any questions:
www.siue.edu/employment/c...
www.siue.edu/employment/c...
Reposted by Erik B. Alexander
