@lkatfield.bsky.social

@BrookingsInst, and @AmericanU. PhD in Political Theory/Public Law @UTGovernment. 🌲

Furious Minds is available for pre-order.

[@lkatfield.bsky.social @lkatfield]

I'm thrilled to be working on this with @PrincetonUPress.

[Harold R. Kuntz @HaroldRKuntz3]

Another one of those sentences you thought you'd never hear.

[Nathan J Robinson @NathanJRobinson]

New Yorker exposé of Andrew Tate is even more horrifying than what we already knew. According to it, he raped and beat a 15-year old girl and bought her off with teddy bears. Tate was promoted by Tucker Carlson, Don Trump Jr., and Musk suggested he should be UK prime minister

[Bob Elder @southernphd]

I never met Gordon Wood, but I have a story about him.

In one of my grad school seminars, we read Wood’s Creation of the American Republic. The sheer erudition and evidentiary depth of the book bowled me over.

Back then, before kids and before life accelerated to warp speed, I used to call my mother every Sunday to catch up. Lots of times, we ended up talking about what I was reading that week in my grad seminars or for leisure. Mom had an omnivorous mind, and she was always looking for something else to read. She was a true intellectual—curious about almost everything, always eager to integrate new arguments or ideas into her existing schemas of how the world worked or to have those schemas challenged and changed.

When we talked that particular Sunday, I think I tried to describe to her part of Wood’s argument about the relationship between the state constitutions during the Articles of Confederation era and the federal Constitution. Maybe I was tired, maybe I didn’t completely understand her questions, but the end result of the conversation was that Mom had questions about Wood’s argument that I didn’t answer satisfactorily. I told her that she should probably just read the book, and we said goodbye.

She did eventually read the book, but the next Sunday, Mom started our conversation by saying, “Well, I had a lovely conversation with Gordon Wood this week.” For a split second, I thought she was joking, but then I remembered who I was dealing with. I started to sweat. “How?” I asked. A whole variety of unlikely scenarios in which the foremost historian of the American Revolution and my mother, who lived in Wichita, Kansas, might have met ran through my mind. “Oh, I just looked up his office phone number on Brown’s website and called, and he picked up!” Mom said. I decided I would have to find another profession.

As it ended up, Gordon Wood spent about an hour on the phone with my mother answering her questions about the Constitution. Ever since, I’ve had a soft spot for the man when I imagine him picking up the phone in Providence and finding Becky Elder from Wichita on the other end of the line. His generosity in that moment spoke very well of him.

Rest in peace, professor.

[Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias]

Why did he construct an analogy in which he is on the side of the Nazis?

[TheFrenchie @ML3democrats]

Remember when they said Zelensky desecrated the sanctity of the White House by not wearing a suit

[Illiberalism Studies Program @ILLSP_GWU]

A new issue of the Journal of Illiberalism Studies #JIS is out now! This special issue (with @CERI_SciencesPo) brings together research on narratives, actors, and institutions shaping illiberal politics across global contexts. Thread below!

https://t.co/PoGGZCmrx0

[David French @DavidAFrench]

I for one would like to join Batya in opposing serial cheaters who insult vets and enjoy massive inherited wealth from dad. I'm sure she'll be consistent in this stand. Won't she?

[Tyler Austin Harper @Tyler_A_Harper]

Genuinely, can someone give me the steel man version of the rationale behind the new “give everyone AI” university strategy? What is the theory of the case here? Do universities think it’s sustainable to ask students to pay over $90k per year to cheat their way through college?

[Christopher W. Jones @cwjones89]

To be clear, universities are doing this because they think it will enable professors to get 2x as many grants and teach 4x as many students for the same pay.

[Mike Drucker @MikeDrucker]

It’s good and normal that official government accounts now literally just post shit like, “Don’t question authority no matter how bad things are”

[Suzuki Nathie 🇺🇦🇬🇱 @SkoczSteven]

Mike they tried to hang you

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

“Silence, peasants”

[Rachel Christine @RachelXReads]

I'm a PhD student studying the sociopolitical ideals in early novels by British women, and part of my research has involved revising existing scholarship because many modern scholars have little knowledge of the Bible – a text that the novelists they study knew well and frequently incorporated into their works. That gap is incorrectly reshaping how literature is interpreted and received today. It's a real problem.

[Michael @TheMG3D]

America is the laughing stock of the world, what the actual fuck

[SamuelGoldman @SWGoldman]

Correct. The problem is less “they don’t teach this or that” than that they probably do in some class but it’s completely disconnected to other relevant subjects, authors, or works.

[Cathy Young 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱 @CathyYoung63]

Timing!

[Richard Albert @RichardAlbert]

🙏🏽 We have lost Ran Hirschl, a great person, scholar, and teacher. He passed away earlier this week on Tuesday, May 19. My condolences to his partner and wife, Ayelet Shachar, and to their son, Shai.

📝 The University of Toronto has published this announcement: https://t.co/UupDlqRPiB.

🕊️ May Ran rest in peace.

[Tyler Austin Harper @Tyler_A_Harper]

A key point @jennfrey makes here is that despite hand-waiving about the student-customer model, the humanities are often cut even when student demand is high. Heard the same from folks at Chicago last year—cuts to the classics despite an explosion in classics interest nationally.

[Zena Hitz @zenahitz]

So grim, so disrespectful of students