Any reasonable, empathetic person can find any number of reasons to find troubling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The suffering, dislocation, and grief that any war inflicts on anyone in its path. The odiousness of Vladimir Putin, who had the gall to say that one goal of his “special military operation” was the “denazification” of Ukraine: … More Thoughts on Ukraine
As I mentioned earlier this summer, historians at Bethel are now part of a larger Department of History, Philosophy, and Political Science, with each of those core majors — plus three of our interdisciplinary programs — culminating in a common capstone course that I’ll be teaching this fall: Applied Humanities Seminar. For the most part, I’m … More What Are “Applied Humanities”?
Next spring I’ll be teaching History and Politics of Sports for the second time. It’s hard to know how much change to make, given that the inaugural class was forced online halfway through semester by a global pandemic. But one difference is already evident: I’ll be leading the course by myself, since my friend and … More Thursday’s Podcast: The Politics of the Olympics
I’ve written before about my enthusiasm for Current, the online magazine edited by historians John Fea, Jay Green, and Eric Miller. So it was an honor to make my debut there this morning, with an essay that connects the ongoing debate over historical commemoration to themes from my new biography of Charles Lindbergh. Entitled “The … More More on the Challenge of Commemoration
For about a dozen years now, I’ve been active in the Conference on Faith and History, serving on its executive board since 2016. This week that board voted not only to endorse the American Historical Association’s condemnation of the January 6th insurrection in Washington, DC, but to publish our own statement, which I’ve reprinted below. … More The Conference on Faith and History Condemns the Assault on the U.S. Capitol
I’ve been blogging long enough to hesitate before responding too quickly to current events. But today is going to be an exception. To be honest, I’d paid no attention to events in Washington, DC for most of the day. I knew that the process of Congress formally certifying Joe Biden’s election as president would be … More “This Is Who We’ve Become”
Happy Veterans Day just doesn’t feel right to me. I mean, it’s a day I want to honor. And it is a happy occasion for many veterans: a day they can look back with pride on their service to their country, perhaps a day they can celebrate the educational and professional doors their service opened. … More The Many Sides of Veterans Day
Even if 2020 weren’t a presidential election year in the United States, I’d still spend this fall celebrating democracy. Not only is this the 100th anniversary of American women getting the vote, but I’m teaching a class on the Cold War, a conflict that began with the defeat of one authoritarian regime and ended with … More A Democracy, If You Can Keep It
We don’t live all that close to the places in Minneapolis and St. Paul that have seen actual violence in recent days. But last night we were told by a neighbor that a man with a semi-automatic weapon had been seen walking around our first-ring suburb, and Twitter reported that white supremacists were staying at … More The With-God Life: Breath and Fire
What does the spread of the coronavirus mean for sports? We started to talk through that big question on this week’s extended spring break episode of The 252. In our first segment, we briefly discussed the postponement of the Olympics, how the absence of sports changes our perception of the passage of time, and Paul … More Wednesday’s Podcast: Sports in the Age of COVID-19
The Pietist Schoolman 