T-Pain Against the Machine: How Mid-2000s Hip Hop Can Inspire College Students to Skip the AI and Find Their Own Voice

T-Pain’s stunning, stripped-down vocal performance on the Tiny Desk version of “Buy U A Drank (Shawty Snappin’)” makes it clear that he’s got the organic vocal chops to “sound good” without any digital assistance. Through T-Pain's example, students see that we must first know what our own voices are capable of to then explore what technology might do to expand, enhance, or embellish our creative endeavors.

September 2, 2025 0

History of Delinquency – AMH 3931/CCJ 4934

This course introduces the history of delinquency as a legal construct in the United States since 1825. Broadly defined as the adult conception of criminal and problematic youth behavior, we will examine what delinquency meant during the past 200 years as well as antidelinquency efforts deployed by families, social workers, police departments, judges, clinicians, politicians, and legislators.

August 29, 2025 0

Noir City vs. The Opera on the Turnpike: As Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run Turns 50, Its Most Underrated Track Deserves Some Love

"Meeting Across the River" routinely lands last when fans rank their Born to Run favorites. But its noir mood was where the country was heading in the mid-1970s.

August 26, 2025 0

“Making New History” with Old Tools: The Coloniality of Method in (Post-)Colonial Historical Commissions

Even well-intentioned efforts at historical reckoning can reproduce epistemic harm when they rely on unexamined disciplinary assumptions.

August 4, 2025 0

Presenting at your First Undergraduate Academic Conference: A Guide FOR Students BY Students

Presenting original research at an academic conference is a major achievement for undergraduate students. Take some advice from undergrads who have not only survived their first academic conference, but thrived.

July 12, 2025 2

Digital Tools for the Humanities

Machines reconﬁgure work. And yet, historians or other humanistic researchers rarely think about the way that our digital workﬂows—the tools that we use to do our work—enable or disenable the kinds of questions we pursue and the evidence that we marshal to answer them.

May 23, 2025 1

The Industry that Stayed: How Meatpacking Remained Domestic

As the Trump administration calls for the return of domestic manufacturing, there is one industry that managed to resist the outsourcing process of the late 20th century. It only required the destruction of its labor unions.

May 12, 2025 0

“Don’t Kill Big Bird” — The Trump Administration’s Showdown with PBS and NPR

In 1995, Democrats held up a Big Bird doll to laud the importance of children’s television and save public broadcast funding. This strategy does not seem likely to work in 2025.

May 1, 2025 0

The First 100 Days of Trump 2.0: A Foreign Policy Assessment

The first 100 days of President Trump's second term marks a departure from established US foreign policy, focusing on dismantling international aid and agreements. His administration’s actions, including cuts to USAID and skepticism toward NATO, jeopardize global partnerships. Trump's approach favors unilateralism and transactional relations over multilateral cooperation, risking America's leadership and security in an increasingly authoritarian world.

April 30, 2025 1

Trump Proposes Bracero Program 3.0

Trump has floated the idea of creating a new category of (im)migrant worker to deal with the labor shortages caused by his own deportation program. This type of program has a long history in the United States. What Trump is proposing is a rerun of an old policy that attempts to codify white supremacy by solidifying Anglos at the top of society with a permanent (im)migrant underclass to make the economy hum for the benefit of the wealthy.

April 30, 2025 0