Profile avatar
jeffmanuel.bsky.social
Historian of Energy, Technology, and the Environment; Professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville; Coauthor of the forthcoming book “Ethanol: A Hemispheric History for the Future of Biofuels;” Public and Oral History Practitioner. jeffmanuel.com
1,050 posts 1,242 followers 756 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
Posts 11 Comments 39

I spent the past week in the Black Hills. Between Rushmore and Crazy Horse, can we just say stop with carving mountains into other things?Mountains are cool as they are, no need to do anything else!

submitted 5 hours ago • 2 comments

I didn't realize that having a 20th century infrastructure for a 21st century climate will turn a suburban commute into the chase scene from Bullitt.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Well, there goes my plan to smelt a little aluminum this afternoon...

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

She looks serene, but in the past week this jerk has eaten all my hostas, all my potted flowers, attacked my dog, and basically bullied me out of using my backyard 😂

submitted 8 days ago • 2 comments

20th century historians: Ben Looker and Amanda Izzo are seeking chapters for a collection on liberal and left social movements in St. Louis during the 1930s-1940s. This will be a prequel to their excellent collection 2023 collection on the 1960s-1970s CFP: drive.google.com/file/d/1zOiX... 🗃️

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Listening to students' oral histories today and here's a great St. Louis story: guy bought a 1000+ square foot abandoned Knights of Columbus Hall for $50K just because the KoC left a fully stocked bar. He drank alone in the empty building until the booze was gone and then sold the building.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Re: the historians-and-AI discourse, I keep asking what it means for teaching (beyond preventing cheating). If I squint, I can see a way that we become more like the natural and lab sciences: lit reviews (ie historiographies) get less attention (& may be machine-powered), but there's far more focus+

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

As a historian who has published in the Annals of Iowa, I'm disappointed the state is severing ties to the journal. To use the state-appropriate metaphor, we're eating our seed corn when it comes to understanding the history and culture of our region. www.iowapublicradio.org/ipr-news/202... 🗃️

submitted 24 days ago • 3 comments

Not the main point, but these LLM models are so damn obsequious: “this is brilliant” “genius” etc. For teachers, it means our feedback now also has to argue with a powerful machine telling students they’re great writers.

submitted 25 days ago • 1 comment

Interesting article in the current issue of _Labor_ on downstate Illinois teachers' unions and how they secured "one of the strongest public sector collective bargaining laws in the United States in 1984." read.dukeupress.edu/labor/articl...

submitted 27 days ago • 1 comment

Looking at a decade-old (and little maintained) digital history project that runs a combo of WordPress and Omeka. After 10 years, the WordPress side has all kinds of glitches. But the Omeka side has been rock solid. A testament to the great product the Omeka team has built and future-proofed.

submitted 30 days ago • 2 comments