Here are a few interesting articles and pieces we found around the web this week. If you come across something that other intellectual historians might enjoy, please let us know in the comments section!
Emily:
As we went to press, the US Supreme Court released its opinion in Obergefell et al. v. Hodges, legalizing same-sex marriage throughout the United States and requiring all states to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in another state. It’ll soon be seen as an important chapter in how the history of marriage and the family has been used by the law. For a companion piece, try Zachary Herz, Law v. History: the story of the Supreme Court’s misguided, forty-year fixation on ancient gay history (Eidolon), which explains how perceptions of ancient sexuality have shaped SCOTUS opinions over the decades.
For more important history in the public political sphere, see the Charleston syllabus created by Chad Williams, Keisha Blaine, and a host of other contributors (African-American Intellectual History Society)
On the history of the Oxford Professorship of Poetry, Hal Jensen, A Self-defining Chair (TLS)
Also in Oxford news, Jessica Thurtell, Frantic Rush, Awful Crisis, the life of a woman student at Oxford in the 1930s (Oxford Today)
And meanwhile, in London intellectual history, Fiona McCarthy, A Tragic Heroine of the Reading Room, on Eleanor Marx (NYRB)
Eric Christiansen, Two Cheers for the Middle Ages (NYRB)
Emile Chabal and Stephan Malinowski, Can Britain be European?: Beyond the “Historians for Britain” Manifesto (Books & Ideas)