Seth Rockman
Historian at Brown University: history.brown.edu/people/seth-e-rockman Author of _Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery_ Nov. 2024, press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chic…
- 🧵Give a read...
- Reposted by Seth RockmanIn less than a week the Kennedy Center has effectively closed and our local DC paper has been gutted, both by billionaires. I don’t think immigrants are our problem in this country.
- Reposted by Seth RockmanThis history professor informed his students of what books were being censored. One of them (it seems to me) is almost certainly the award-winning Scraping By: Wage Labor, Slavery, and Survival in Early Baltimore (JHU, 2009), by @sethrockman.bsky.social
- Reposted by Seth RockmanAre female economists treated differently than males in academic seminars? These authors wanted to know whether gender shapes how scholars are treated when presenting research. So they built a massive dataset of 2,000+ economics seminars, job talks, and conference presentations from 2019–2023...
- Somehow I waited until now to read Lewis Mumford. [A weird gap in my scholarly training perhaps?] Regardless, looking at the terrifyingly prescient "Authoritarian and Democratic Technics" (1964) for the first time. Its central exhortation matters like never before: "life cannot be delegated"
- Reposted by Seth RockmanAll in all I'd have to say I don't enjoy being ruled by semi-literate perverts with infinite money
- Have you always wanted to listen to a conversation between @svenbeckert.bsky.social and myself about his new book? Well, now you can, thanks to @watsonschoolbrown.bsky.social #RhodesCenter podcast!
- Reposted by Seth RockmanThe media should cover sport the way they cover the state murder of civilians: ‘Jannik Sinner appeared to win the French Open yesterday after what supporters say was a comeback from being two sets down.’
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- Reposted by Seth RockmanSigns about the history of slavery in the U.S. and the 9 people George Washington enslaved are being removed right now at the President’s House Site in Philadelphia, across from Independence Hall, months after the Trump administration threatend to do so. How far we have not come in 250 years.
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- Reposted by Seth Rockman"The Gospel Is Anti-Fascist"
- Reposted by Seth RockmanReally looking forward to tomorrow’s roundtable on Plantation Goods with @sethrockman.bsky.social @aishadjelid.bsky.social @sallytuckett.bsky.social @apeikeumolu.bsky.social @johnmunro.bsky.social All welcome! www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/round...
- Reposted by Seth RockmanElected officials have to stop posting like bystanders who have no power.
- Susan O'Donovan had a conversation about slavery's archive, experiential research, "slow history," and the institutional supports for knowledge production in our field. That conversation appears in the latest @laborlawchajournal.bsky.social and I hope you'll read it! Unpaywalled here...
- A good moment to note that two months from now, Susan's *Moving toward Freedom* will be coming out from @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social and it is going to be awesome! Preorder now..
- And while we're at it, Plantation Goods from @uchicagopress.bsky.social will be out in paperback at about the same time this spring!
- Reposted by Seth RockmanAre you a PhD student working on a dissertation that engages with the history of the city or metropolitan planning (anytime or place)? Apply to participate in the inaugural Alison Isenberg Dissertation Colloquium at the SACRPH Conference in Cincinnati on Oct 15! Please repost and share offline.
- Thanks, Karin!
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- I am grateful for this opportunity to visit Birmingham next week and very much looking forward to the conversation!
- @sethrockman.bsky.social @apeikeumolu.bsky.social @aishadjelid.bsky.social and @sallytuckett.bsky.social are coming to Birmingham next Friday to discuss Plantation Goods: A Material History of Slavery - everyone welcome! www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/round...
- I will never stop being furious about the desecration of our Capitol and the lack of accountability for the criminals who plotted this coup. I also think it is outrageous that we still don't know the names of all the Congresspeople who made this an "inside job." This treachery must yet be revealed.
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- Evidence of a profoundly dysfunctional society. Not unique to Rhode Island by any means, but no less infuriating.
- @universityofri.bsky.social men’s basketball coach is highest-paid R.I. state employee — again. The top 10 highest paid state workers in 2025 included five URI employees, three correctional officers, and two state doctors www.bostonglobe.com/2025/12/30/m...
- Reposted by Seth RockmanAs a site for both historical research and commentary, Labor: Studies in Working-Class History hopes to provide an intellectual scaffolding for understanding the roots of continuing social dilemmas. Issue 22:4 is now available. View the TOC: buff.ly/ZW0Ee2A @laborlawchajournal.bsky.social
- World’s worst Hanukkah gelt
- Current view, leaving me so profoundly sad. My students know how much I love teaching at Brown, and my heart aches for them and for our whole community.
- Ok, are the Early Americanists hyped for this, or what?
- Reposted by Seth RockmanHighly recommend this piece. The widespread, unthinking adoption of corporate AI programming undermines the purpose of education in a democratic society. www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...
- Reposted by Seth RockmanThe new volume in our book series takes you to places of dirt, sweat, and physical labour: archives. Their material features have long been neglected by scholarship. Yet, they are crucial sites of human interaction with written artefacts. Open access! uhh.de/csmc-archives
- Primo postdoc at Brown University, shared between the Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice and the John Carter Brown Library. apply.interfolio.com/175378
- Open to scholars "focused on any area/theme of historical scholarship around racial slavery, and/ or Indigenous dispossession and slavery.... [+ those] working on the relationships between African slavery and Indigenous slavery and dispossession as well as related issues of freedom and sovereignty."
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- Reposted by Seth RockmanWe were honoured to welcome Secretary @hillaryclinton.bsky.social to St John's this week, in collaboration with @oxhistoryfaculty.bsky.social, for two days of events celebrating the Hillary Rodham Clinton Chair of Women’s History, held by Professor Sarah Knott. www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/discover/new...
- Reposted by Seth RockmanI had the pleasure and privilege of reviewing @svenbeckert.bsky.social's landmark "Capitalism: A Global History" for @bostonglobe.com. Out tomorrow from @penguinpress.bsky.social. Thanks to @katekilla.bsky.social for the opportunity. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/24/a...
- Reposted by Seth RockmanRe-upping this story on how Tulane has affirmative action admissions criteria for male applicants. Edward Blum has not launched any lawsuits against them yet to my knowledge. www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/m...
- There is a pleasure in being reminded that we were all young once. The 1976 footage at the 2:40 mark here is sweet. youtu.be/BjAjbImHPE4?...
- And to his credit, Gordon Wood went to the AEI last night and declared his rejection of a blood-and-soil version of American identity "as passionately as I can."
- Full speech here
- A two-year LABOR HISTORY postdoc @brownhist.bsky.social and @watsonschoolbrown.bsky.social Possible foci: migration/displacement/ human trafficking; automation/technology/processes of global integration; or gender/sexuality/politics of reproductive labor Please apply!
- Reposted by Seth RockmanNew at PB: Stephanie Wong interviews Seth Rockman (@sethrockman.bsky.social) about his latest book, "Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery (@uchicagopress.bsky.social) and his experience learning to work on a late 18th-century loom.
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- Reposted by Seth RockmanCan none of these millionaires sex criminals write in full sentences? Have you heard of paragraphs? Punctuation? No wonder ChatGPT sounds like a genius to these clowns.
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- Wonderful conversation with @kawulf.bsky.social and Leslie Harris at @brownhist.bsky.social about Lineage, Karin’s wonderful new @oxfordunipress.bsky.social book!
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- This is tremendous and I am grateful for this honor.
- A controversial theory? GTFO with this "aristocracy" nonsense.
- Leaving no option unexplored as Spring semester pre-registration arrives...
- Extreme local post: classical field hockey gets to div iii finals in overtime win!!!!
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- Reposted by Seth RockmanI know it’s too much to expect them to know their history, but if the American Revolution had a motto, it definitely would not have been “immigrants go home.” It would have been “get your fucking soldiers out of our cities.”
- Reposted by Seth RockmanIt is hard to overstate the stress produced by the incoherence of academic institutions pumping generative AI when they want to play business and then leaving instructors to deal with the results when they want to play school
- Reposted by Seth RockmanOne year ago
- *Plantation Goods* has had an incredible run, beyond anything I could have imagined. I am absolutely thrilled that the book is being honored with the Horowitz Prize from the Bard Graduate Center for scholarship on decorative arts, design history, or material culture. @uchicagopress.bsky.social
