History Is What the GOP Doesn’t Want You to Teach

(As Fred Jameson once said.)

So I’ve been teaching it and talking about teaching it. Gave a long talk at The Story Center of Kansas City’s Mid-Continent Public Library Tuesday night (on Facebook Live, recorded here: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=461105401624401&ref=watch_permalink) on Missouri writers, which is hard to do without talking about the state’s special history of race, capitalism, and empire.

I also wrote a short thing for Modernism/modernity‘s blog In These Times (https://modernismmodernity.org/forums/posts/cohen-2016-project) in which I use Walter Johnson, Walter Williams, and no other Walters to talk about why it’s important to be able to teach these kinds of things, especially in These Times.

You don’t have to watch the long talk or read the short thing, of course, but if you want to pick one, pick the short thing, and share it with people if you think it’s worth the clicking. I think it’s an important subject and hope you do too. Use hashtags. Like #CriticalRaceTheory, #1619Project, my newly invented and surely not catching on #2016Project. If there’s anything we can do to keep these bills legislative stunts only rather than watching them become laws, we should do it.