Christine Johnson

@christinkallama.bsky.social

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Historian of Renaissance Germany. Author of _The German Discovery of the World: Renaissance Encounters with the Strange and Marvelous_. Mostly on Mastodon: @[email protected].

She/her

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Christine Johnson

The attempted assassination of Donald Trump does not erase the crimes that Trump himself has committed against American democracy, or the crimes he would commit if given the chance, and no one is obligated to pretend otherwise www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Nothing About the Attempted Assassination Redeems Trumpwww.theatlantic.com This crime does not erase what the former president has done, or what he has promised to do.

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Christine Johnson

it feels like the whiteness of big political media spaces right now is having a big effect on how people are thinking about the debate. eg I have seen relatively little discussion of trump's "black jobs" comment, which immediately exploded on black twitter

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Christine Johnson

Marcellus Williams was cleared by DNA evidence and the prosecutor is trying to vacate the conviction, but the state of Missouri still scheduled an execution date for him. Please sign and share this petition innocenceproject.org/petitions/st...

Stop the Sept. 24 Execution of Marcellus Williams, an Innocent Man - Innocence Projectinnocenceproject.org DNA evidence not available at the time of trial proves his innocence but has not been considered in court. Act today.

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Christine Johnson

I wish people who consider themselves measured but are still concerned about crime would realize that a city spending millions on surveillance is a placebo. They want to seem proactive but there's no reliable theory as to how surveillance addresses the root causes of crime.

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Christine Johnson

"Historians travel to archives because that’s the only way to access most of the materials preserved in archives, but they also go there to work with and learn from archivists."

Why Do Historians Still Have To Go To Archives?contingentmagazine.org Why do historians go to archives? Hasn’t everything already been digitized?

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Christine Johnson

"Appeasing revanchist radicals, whether they're enslavers or modern-day Nazis, is always the way to go. I am a very smart boy."

What an abominable lesson to draw from the Lincoln-Douglas debates - and just in time for Juneteenth! 🗃️ www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

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Christine Johnson

So, even within Christianity, the Ten Commandments aren't precisely the same across traditions — the text is translated and even *numbered* differently. This law appears to mandate the KJV version — a Bible translation entire Christian traditions reject. apnews.com/article/loui...

The Ten Commandments must be displayed in Louisiana classrooms under requirement signed into lawapnews.com Louisiana has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom. Republican Gov.

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Christine Johnson

FYI

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Christine Johnson

An easy way to support your public library is to make use of it—even if only to visit. We keep (anonymized) statistics not only on circulation totals but on attendance & visits and even on patron-staff interactions. Big numbers please trustees and municipal/county administrators. 📚

ok i have another quote tweet prompt. what's something, big or small, related to your job or hobby, that most people don't know that you would like to have them know? it can be a concept, a piece of history, some vocabulary, or something else.

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Christine Johnson

"Chavis, a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, has been an outspoken advocate for Indigenous and LGBTQ+ rights in ways that have sometimes pitted him against university officials, he told Inside Higher Ed in April."

Native American (Lumbee) professor recorded in his classroom without his knowledge and had his contract dropped. A state school is an arm of the government and can be just as fascist as any other part of it. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

UNC dismisses professor after secretly recording his classeswww.insidehighered.com The university recorded Larry Chavis’s class without his consent for a professional review. Last week he was told his contract would not be renewed.

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Christine Johnson

From the people who brought you “protests disrupt the educational mission of the university”

My university just notified us that all academic activities will be suspended on the day (a Friday) of the home-opening football game, to accommodate fans, parking, and media. Can't think of a better way to illustrate that education is a secondary priority in this institution.

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Christine Johnson

A cheat sheet for those who might watch the Euros: the players on the French team are French.

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Christine Johnson

Today the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees, being led by the nose by President Eli Capilouto, finalized the dissolution of the University Senate, putting the final nail in the coffin of shared governance.

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NEWS: After sustained attacks from House Republicans, the Stanford Internet Observatory is being dismantled. A huge blow to academic freedom and our ability to understand platforms and influence operations www.platformer.news/stanford-int...

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Christine Johnson

I want to remind people of this. It is Biden's plan to wipe out student debt and wiped out my wife's which had nearly doubled from its original. Sign up.

This deadline was extended. Please act by June 30! Someone I know who did this just received a notice that 100% of their remaining debt was wiped. Not everyone will have those results, but I can't think of a situation in which it isn't worth doing.

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Christine Johnson

"Luccioni’s team has estimated it costs about 30 times as much energy to generate text versus simply extracting it from a source." @parshallison.bsky.social in @sciam.bsky.social on the harrowing environmental cost of getting a [in my words] machine to tell us to eat rocks and poisonous mushrooms. 🧪

Google's AI Overviews must create entirely new information in response to a search query. That costs an estimated *30 times* more energy than simply extracting information from a source through a traditional search. 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/what... by @parshallison.bsky.social

What Do Google’s AI Answers Cost the Environment?www.scientificamerican.com Google is bringing AI answers to a billion people this year, but generative AI requires much more energy than traditional keyword searches

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Christine Johnson

Medieval and Renaissance Studies books are 50% off today (June 11th) at @cornellupress.bsky.social, with the code 09YARDMED: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/subjects/med... 😃 📚 #medievalsky #earlymodern

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Christine Johnson

Interesting piece by Heidi Hausse on #earlymodern surgery, amputations, & artificial limbs in the era following the rise of gunpowder weapons & printed surgical treatises in Europe: wapo.st/3XcWSVT (gift link) #HSTM

Perspective | Amputations, iron hands, wooden legs: A history of artificial body partswapo.st Prostheses have been around for hundreds of years.

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Christine Johnson

Has science gone too far?

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Christine Johnson

history.ucla.edu/2024/06/04/h...

History Faculty Support Student Amnestyhistory.ucla.edu We, the undersigned faculty members of the History Department, support amnesty for student protesters. On Friday, May 24, 2024 UCLA issued notices of disciplinary proceedings to every UCLA student…

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Christine Johnson

Imagine running for president and a former coworker publicly attests to you using the n-word, and by evening that's only the day's second-worst story for you. slate.com/culture/2024...

For 20 Years, I Couldn’t Say What Donald Trump Did on the Set of The Apprentice. Now I Can.slate.com The con we pulled on America just won’t die.

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Christine Johnson

The abuse of public records to attack researchers, a thread: On Tuesday morning of this week (May 21), Matt Taibbi began to send me a series of messages requesting my response to a series of leading questions about public records that he planned to publish as part of an upcoming series of articles.

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Historic night at DU. A community came together to defend our students against an admin that was tone deaf and a drunk mob of counter protesters that tried repeatedly to instigate violence. There were no cops and no campus safety. Just faculty and staff in neon yellow vests protecting students.

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The Folger Shakespeare Library's new Director will be Professor Farah Karim-Cooper of King's College London / the Globe Theatre! #EarlyModern 🗃 wapo.st/3V6e1yX

Folger Shakespeare Library names Farah Karim-Cooper its new directorwapo.st Karim-Cooper, author of “The Great White Bard,” will be the first person of color to lead the nearly 100-year-old institution.

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Christine Johnson

I hope at least *one person* speaks up for the need to understand our current challenges (from climate change to pandemics to on-going wars) as embedded in history. The gutting of the Humanities, but especially History, in the past 2 decades has undercut our knowledge base in every possible respect.

Leaders will not only be addressing members of Congress. These hearings are broadcasted live, and will be covered extensively by media outlets. Leaders can use them as the rare opportunities they are to address the nation and speak clearly about the value of higher education in our society. 4/4

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Christine Johnson

It won't get the attention it deserves because it happened here and it's decidedly un-sensational, but the UWM administration's response to our student encampment is an object lesson in the virtues of restraint and non-escalation, and should be a national model

UW-Milwaukee strikes deal with pro-Palestinian protesters to take down encampmentwww.jsonline.com Protesters have until Tuesday morning to take down the tents. They also agreed not to disrupt commencement, which will be held May 19.

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UGA law school has a First Amendment clinic. That clinic helps file open records requests. But when it sought information about Attorney General Chris Carr's baffling RICO charges against Cop City protesters, the open record request center was shut down.

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Christine Johnson

Last week, the ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt used the phrase "we are not the Jews with trembling knees." (www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lnw...) This is a good piece on the disturbing and ahistorical poem that phrase comes from.