Joseph Rezek
@rezekjoe
English Prof and Director of American Studies at Boston University. Gay dad and husband. 2024-2025 NEH fellow for “The Racialization of Print,” forthcoming from OIEAHC & UNC Press.
Of all the founders, I think it’s probably Jefferson (who died with massive debt), who would pay $700 to save $250 on a carpet cleaning
These are my facsimiles of Frederick Douglass’s NARRATIVE (1845) and MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM (1855), which I printed at FedEx and manually collated line by line over the course of four weeks while on my NEH fellowship in 2025. I will never forget the time I was given for this project
My beautiful chapter piles, where I go to check my sources. They have been with me for so long!!!
These comments from Ana Lucia Araujo, on FB, provide a useful perspective from inside the profession of history, about the Greenidge controversy. But please note that we do not know why she no longer teaches at Tufts. The NYT did NOT say her tenure was revoked, and Greenidge hasn’t commented.
Very thoughtful initial response to the Greenidge scandal by @alexiscoe.bsky.social. In her substack, linked below.
This is not a constitutional republic anymore. I’m not saying we can’t get it back, but right now the US is an autocracy.
Whatever the hell else is happening, I do not trust the motives of Myra Glenn, who wrote the 2024 take-down review that appears to have precipitated the end of Kerri Greenidge’s academic career (as reported in the NYT) Here is one paragraph that shows her primary goal was to defend the Grimkés:
At least one (amazing) bookshop is selling Cleves’s book, Charity and Sylvia, right next to the new graphic novel. (Vermont Book Shop, Middlebury)
I find @triciamatthew.bsky.social ’s editions of Jane Austen wherever I go! (This is the Vermont Book Shop in Middlebury)
This is what they have taken from us. Knowledge, vetted, organized by subject. Without AI or algorithm.
It is the Mrs Bennet era of democratic nominations. Must be a man I guess!! It is a truth universally acknowledged that any man in search of office in the Trump era must be preferable to a woman!
People seem mad that the Times here is saying that sexual assault doesn’t always end a political career. But actually in this case they are correct! Republicans don’t give a shit!
Mills has still not commented about any of this. Good for her, she doesn’t owe anyone shit
The difference between me and Kevin is I’ll go to hell and back with these computers before declining an honorarium!! (I swear i hadnt seen his tweet before posting mine!)
Goodnight, local Vermont guys who blew up the forest, and happy 4th 🫶🇺🇸💣💥
Friends! This is what I most want to say. The Declaration did not invent the idea of equality. The nation is ours, we cannot afford not to improve it. Make this anniversary mean something, for the future.
Emily Wilson doesn’t have time for online nonsense/culture war about the upcoming ODYSSEY. 👌
The Declaration didn’t invent the idea of freedom, and it didn’t reach for the ideal of total freedom either. 250 years later, we need to think of the Am Rev along with other Revolutions that did better, including in Haiti I’m keeping the Declaration tho- it still has much to teach us
Maybe it’s not “deep red” then huh??? Did you ever think of that?!?!?!??!!?