I’m thinking about starting a new major in blueskyist studies.
Historian, professor, author. Author/editor of 5 books, including AMERICAN ZION: A NEW HISTORY OF MORMONISM. views = my own https://linktr.ee/benjaminepark
6,146 followers 420 following 1,865 posts
view profile on Bluesky
I’m thinking about starting a new major in blueskyist studies.
Surrender DonOLD!
Question for those of you who follow football a lot closer than I do: Do knee pads just not matter anymore? It seems all these players hike their pants/pads up to mid-thigh.
@shearites.bsky.social Thanks to the generosity of @robynlilyphd.bsky.social, we have renamed this annual prize the SHEAR Robyn Lily Davis Dissertation Prize. Now it'll come with a $1000 prize as well as a book contract and ms. workshop. Thank you, Robyn & Bill! shear.org/shear-book-p...
RFK Jr. transformed conspiracy theories into action and reshaped American policy in just a few months. @annamerlan.bsky.social and @kieraevebutler.bsky.social break down just how we got here:
I don’t know if it’s the same group. And correct, I think the conspiracy is nonsense.
thanks i hate it
First pass pages (a.k.a. page proofs). LFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, I print the whole thing out. Yes, I go line-by-line using a wooden ruler I have had since college. #oldschool
Just randomly thinking of this Community scene. For no reason.
Let’s just say if Biden went three days without being seen the New York Times would have organized a search party akin to what Boston did with the marathon bombers.
Trump cut tens of billions of aid to dying communities, cancelled billions of funding for scientific research, rescinded tens of millions of grant dollars for scholarship, and fired tens of thousands of dedicated employees, but are willing to simply burn cash in a fascist show of strength.
I'm not the only one to make this point, but there will need to be the equivalent of Nuremberg Trials when this is all over (however long that takes). If there are no consequences for fascists, we'll keep having fascism.
2025 is all about finding the little things that help you survive. For me, one of those is buying a piece of tres leches cake from HEB, keeping it in my department's fridge, and taking a few bites whenever I walk by.
Come be my colleague at the University of Minnesota -- we are hiring! @umn-rels.bsky.social The Religious Studies program at UMN is searching for a new TT position in Buddhist Studies. Please circulate widely!
Sometimes history can be a real slog. And then sometimes its a joy, and you feel immensely proud of a particular manuscript section. I've had a lot of the former recently, so I'm glad this week has been more of the latter.
A day late to bluesky, but yesterday was the official pub day for 'Roads to Power, Roads to Crisis' with @pennpress.bsky.social Interested in infrastructure, war, revolution and the rise (and fall) of the British Empire in North America? Get your own copy from www.pennpress.org/978151282828...
Remember how the in the tv series 24 the first few chaotic episodes would introduce potential threats that then recede, only to reappear later that season and you’re like, “oh yeah, I forgot things could be even worse!” That’s how I feel expecting the Greenland/Panama/Canada nonsense to resurface.
Job: Associate or Full Professor of Religious Studies at Macalester College specializing in modern American Christianity. Deadline: October 1, 2025.
Happy birthday, dude. Grateful to know you.
Oh my, that looks phenomenal!
So how much of my first-day lecture am I supposed to scrap so we can talk about the Taylor Swift news? A quarter? The entire thing?
I’ve been teaching for a dozen years, and I still can’t sleep the night before the first day of class.
How do those who no longer attend the LDS Church signal their disaffiliation? For some, it’s as simple as drinking coffee or beer. Or they might become Democrats.
As someone currently writing a book on Parker, I always appreciate when people bring this up. :)
Only someone unfamiliar with actual academic departments would refer to our gatherings of awkward nerds as “academic hothouses.” Gawd I wish we were cool, powerful, and radical enough to live up to such a sexy stereotype.
Gives new meaning for when sports coaches tell you to “dig deep.”
Last night’s nightmare: I was doing a walk-and-talk with the host of some documentary. But apparently I chose to do so in baggy jeans shorts. Even worse, the tags were hanging out the back, showing I had bought the jorts explicitly for the interview. It was a Jordan Peele-level horror story.
a thought i have reading @clintsmithiii.bsky.social’s wonderful piece is that one reason the administration wants to erase any mention of the worst of our past is because it is intent on recapitulating those atrocities www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
Few better ways to console yourself the final Friday before the semester starts.
I genuinely believe Hope Walz’s TikTok account is the best social media outreach in the entire progressive politics world. Her dad could spend millions on some consulting firm and they couldn’t come up with anything better.
This is really funny to read after spending a few hours today reading and writing about the Know Nothing movement.
Brutal
As much as I loved “The Last Dance,” that documentary about the Jordan Bulls team, I hate that it basically made every sports documentary filmmaker believe that they can and should stretch their project into ten hour-long episodes.
ICYMI, I ranted about Trump’s assault on US history.
Thanks!
Trump’s attack on the Smithsonian is a direct assault on the study of history. I try to explain why in my new YouTube video, which I hope you’ll watch, like, and share. Real history provokes us to reflect and wrestle. Trump prefers history that comforts, justifies, and doesn’t speak back.
It’s been locked into my syllabus every time I’ve taught the class! ;)
ftr, *this* is who they're shutting down. from ACLS:
Holy shit. I'm so sorry, Matt. What ghouls.
Mine is the good fortune to receive a handful of random emails/messages every day on this or that Mormon topic, but few feature a signature that promotes such an exciting forthcoming book.
Look if he wanted to keep his socks then he shouldn’t have got married.
This is fabulous! I’ll incorporate it.
Happy to be in such great company! I recently created a Storymap companion to *New World A-Coming* focusing on Father Divine's Peace Mission in Harlem if the students are interested in some of my data and new analysis: www.crossroads-spirithouse.org/weisenfeld
Evan Haifeli has a couple recent and excellent books on the origins of pluralism in colonial America.
oh this bibliography is amaaaaazing if you haven't checked out @kginlum.bsky.social's *Heathen*: why religiondispatches.org/phoning-it-i...
I’m teaching a grad seminar on American religion this semester, and am really excited to introduce my students to these phenomenal books.
I'm really excited to head to Boston next month for the Religions of Revolution symposium, hosted by the @congrelib.bsky.social and New England Quarterly. I'll be talking about how Theodore Parker used the memory of the Revolution in his abolitionist theology. Come join us on September 27!
If it weren’t for the winters…
i’m so glad Texas learned from past mistakes and our energy grid is now super reliable. oh wait, nevermind, we didn’t learn anything, and now our power is out on yet another scorching August day.
A local taco truck has developed an expertise in a quesabirria—a combination of birria tacos and a quesadilla. i’m pretty sure it took five years off my life but it’s totally worth it.
Few better feelings in the gym than setting up on a deadlift platform next to a nosy and strutting teenager who is trying to ego-lift more than he can manage, and then proceeding to quietly double his weight. #histgym
Just finished Zaakir Tameez’s new Sumner biography. Absolutely loved it. Strongly recommended.
btw, in case any of y’all missed it a few months back, I did a short video on Sinners, the banjo, and the powerful story of resistance embedded within Black music. How Sinners Movie By Ryan Coogler Uses Horror to Tell Black History youtu.be/NOHhPt7JFMk
Here’s a #lifehack tip: If you’re ever feeling down, you can watch that moving cross-generational music scene from Sinners, and you’ll once again believe in the power of human creativity, culture, and endurance.
I decided to go out for a walk after lunch because I apparently forgot I live in Houston that the heat is trying to kill me.
Theodore Parker once told someone that a book was was "so dry I fear it will take fire by spontaneous Combustion and it might bring your house to ashes," and so he advised that they "put it in some iron safe and lock it up tight." An epic book review burn!
As of today, I now officially have *two* high school-aged kids, so if you'll need me I'll be in a puddle in the corner.
I spent the entire afternoon re-writing just a portion for the curriculum for one of my online courses because I just learned my university's online archive only saves them for so many years.
An executive for The Masked Singer snorts an entire rail in one go and prepares to make the pitch of his life
All great ideas. I considered doing the whole volume, but am doing Kathryn Gin Lum’s HEATHEN instead. The intro may be a great companion piece.
Hey religious history folk: Is there a good article to assign that reflects the recent historiographical focus on religion and empire? Preferably one that covers the late-19th and/or early-20th century?
I’m a sucker for Netflix sports documentaries, so I’m binging the new SEC football series despite not being a huge college football fan. My major takeaway is that college football is not healthy for the players, universities, or America.
13th for my kids.
With all this talk about 'erasing history,' we forget how the dedication of the Confederate monument in Arlington was itself an attempt to erase the history of African American military service during the Civil War and their role in ending slavery and defeating the Confederacy.
I’d be so useless, but I can come and just lift/carry heavy things?
I just survived taking my kids school shopping the Saturday before classes start AMA
My forthcoming book with @cornellupress.bsky.social has a COVER!!! 🔥🔥🔥
How the hell do you write a piece about historians writing for the courts that quotes three judges and four law profs but ZERO historians?
Just to be clear here, does she know what happened to Rasputin or the Romanovs
I’m really excited for the conference this fall, in part because it will be my first trip to Detroit!
📣 New special issue of @dialoguejournal.bsky.social "Book of Mormon in Contemporary Scholarship" (58.2). Featuring John Durham Peters, William L. Davis, Ryan A. Davis, @colbytownsend.bsky.social & more. #OpenAccess cc: @taylorpetrey.bsky.social scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/dial/iss...
Feel like its a bad sign about the health of the republic that Pritzker has to talk about TX Dems like they’re the Polish government-in-exile in London
the voting rights act is, in its entirety, obviously constitutional under the 15th amendment, which gives congress broad and proactive authority to stop racial discrimination in voting. and you know it is obviously constitutional because roberts has had to invent entire new doctrines to gut it.
Was there a guy on set whose only job was to mist The Rock with baby oil so he always maintained his glistening appearance?
Quarantining in a hotel room instead of attending a conference is deeply horrible but it gets marginally better when the cinematic masterpiece Fast Five is playing.
I’m frequently asked about my favorite books in Mormon history. It’s an impossible question, and my answer continually changes. But my latest YouTube video outlines some of my favorite books that place Mormonism within the broader context of US history. youtu.be/cCSALC8-86U
Major takeaway after being stuck in a hotel room for three days: There is never a time when at least one cable channel isn’t showing a Marvel movie.
Yeah, symptoms of a head cold, which I thought it was until a family member tested positive.
It feels pretty rude to get COVID in 2025. It feels even ruder to get COVID while you're at a conference so you have to spend the weekend in a hotel room.
Palestinian children have been killed at a rate of more than one child per hour during Israel's war in Gaza. “A whole classroom of children killed every day for nearly two years,” UNICEF’s executive director said. Here are some of their stories: wapo.st/3UCiAjn
I quote that in the video!
Polygamy, Godhood, and Heavenly Mother—Still LDS Doctrine? youtu.be/NvwieFj0lY0
Think I can buy a house overlooking Bear Lake and write it off as a business expense for my YouTube account? (Also, I have a new video up that traces the long and intertwined Mormon beliefs in deification, Heavenly Mother, and polygamy.)
Bear Lake, Utah.
Not to brag, but this is my morning view for the next few days.
The latter, sadly.
How Mormon is my family, you ask? Someone at my reunion took jello salad to the next level and made rice crispy treats with potato chips.
IT HAS A COVER! Pleased to announce that _The Campus Crisis Toolkit: Strategies and Solidarity For the Rest of Us_ is coming from @sunypress.bsky.social in Feb. With 25 chapters from over 40 contributors, the book tackles everything from anti-DEI laws to consultants and cuts to campus violence (1/2)
Today is Utah’s Pioneer Day, which commemorates Mormons arriving in Salt Lake Valley. I did a YouTube video about the three lessons I wish people learned about Pioneer Day’s complicated history. How Mormon Pioneers Fled America to Build Their Own Empire youtu.be/hwDIpcHT1O8
So good to hear! I hope the last 2/3rds are as enjoyable.
The new EDDINGTON film is a lot of things, but it’s also the most terminally online film I’ve ever seen. Basically a fever dream of online discourse from the past 5 years.
I still don’t understand how I ended up in a place that is horrendously hot and humid at 3am.
I’m nearly done with the new William Buckley bio. Among the many revelations, the dude was atrocious with money, despite 1) his family’s *immense* wealth, and 2) his acting as if he was a master of capitalism.
Fantastic! The Liveright team is the absolute best.
Last week, a very special package from @uncpress.bsky.social arrived! I was traveling and eager to touch the Word files turned into PDF files transformed into real paper between glossy covers. Canal Dreamers is a dream come true for me! My nine-year-old son snapped a perfect memory of the moment. 🗃️
Providence is gorgeous. This was my first time to the city, so I took an afternoon exploring the historic districts, monuments, churches, and Brown. (The @shearites.bsky.social conference was pretty good, too.)
You know you’re off to a good start to the day when you’re halfway through your #histgym workout and realize your shirt is inside-out.
If this districting were adopted, I would cycle across 8 distinct districts on my weekend bike ride. (And I am not a distance cyclist.)
OUP books can be ordered directly with this 40% discount code for #SHEAR2025! Exshear25 through the end of July. Great history list but am partial to this one. 😁
