Asif Siddiqi
@historyasif.bsky.social
New Yorker. Historian of Science and Technology. Space. Music. Soviet History. Comics
There is a great essay by Mahmood Mamdani (from 2022) about the Indian diaspora in Uganda. Quite illuminating: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Mahmood Mamdani · The Asian Question: On Leaving Uganda
I was in my mid-twenties in November 1972 when I left Uganda on the orders of Idi Amin, who had seized the presidency...
www.lrb.co.uk
November 22, 2025 at 2:50 AM
There is a great essay by Mahmood Mamdani (from 2022) about the Indian diaspora in Uganda. Quite illuminating: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
This was fantastic. I've rarely read something so self-aware and clued in by a superstar famous person about the weirdness of fame. Plus she's a fan of both Lou (Reed) and John (Cale).
November 22, 2025 at 2:40 AM
This was fantastic. I've rarely read something so self-aware and clued in by a superstar famous person about the weirdness of fame. Plus she's a fan of both Lou (Reed) and John (Cale).
Looking forward to this evisceration.
November 20, 2025 at 10:48 PM
Looking forward to this evisceration.
I hope she stands her ground....
November 19, 2025 at 4:28 PM
I hope she stands her ground....
Reposted by Asif Siddiqi
Let me fix that for you:
Texas A&M is limiting how instructors may discuss gender identity and race in classrooms in an assault on academic freedom unseen in America since the Red Scare.
Texas A&M is limiting how instructors may discuss gender identity and race in classrooms in an assault on academic freedom unseen in America since the Red Scare.
November 13, 2025 at 11:08 PM
Let me fix that for you:
Texas A&M is limiting how instructors may discuss gender identity and race in classrooms in an assault on academic freedom unseen in America since the Red Scare.
Texas A&M is limiting how instructors may discuss gender identity and race in classrooms in an assault on academic freedom unseen in America since the Red Scare.
Happy 80th Birthday to Neil Young. #neilyoung
A towering figure who has produced so much beautiful sound.
Long May You Run.
Hard to pick his greatest song, so I'll just pick what's on my mind this moment:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9Ck...
A towering figure who has produced so much beautiful sound.
Long May You Run.
Hard to pick his greatest song, so I'll just pick what's on my mind this moment:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9Ck...
On the Beach (2016 Remaster)
YouTube video by Neil Young - Topic
www.youtube.com
November 13, 2025 at 3:08 AM
Happy 80th Birthday to Neil Young. #neilyoung
A towering figure who has produced so much beautiful sound.
Long May You Run.
Hard to pick his greatest song, so I'll just pick what's on my mind this moment:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9Ck...
A towering figure who has produced so much beautiful sound.
Long May You Run.
Hard to pick his greatest song, so I'll just pick what's on my mind this moment:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9Ck...
Reposted by Asif Siddiqi
The new book... exists!!! Got my author copies in the mail today! Looks quite readable! Spelled my name right on the cover, even!!!
harpercollins.com/products/the-most-awful-responsibility-alex-wellerstein
harpercollins.com/products/the-most-awful-responsibility-alex-wellerstein
November 12, 2025 at 3:42 PM
The new book... exists!!! Got my author copies in the mail today! Looks quite readable! Spelled my name right on the cover, even!!!
harpercollins.com/products/the-most-awful-responsibility-alex-wellerstein
harpercollins.com/products/the-most-awful-responsibility-alex-wellerstein
This is really good and captures precisely how AI, as a longstanding field of scientific inquiry dating back decades, has been coopted by tech companies into a marketing term for a specific set of practices that bring attention to them.
absolutely. which is why this was the definition for AI that @mjcrockett.bsky.social and I included in our recent TiCS article
November 11, 2025 at 2:33 PM
This is really good and captures precisely how AI, as a longstanding field of scientific inquiry dating back decades, has been coopted by tech companies into a marketing term for a specific set of practices that bring attention to them.
oh wow. That's really bad. That server is an invaluable archive.
November 11, 2025 at 5:34 AM
oh wow. That's really bad. That server is an invaluable archive.
In my comics class today, I talked about Billy Graham (1935-1997), artist for Black Panther in the early '70s (and the first African-American artist to work for Marvel) who brought some incredible style to the idiom of comic art. #comics #comicshistory
November 11, 2025 at 2:52 AM
In my comics class today, I talked about Billy Graham (1935-1997), artist for Black Panther in the early '70s (and the first African-American artist to work for Marvel) who brought some incredible style to the idiom of comic art. #comics #comicshistory
Unbelievable first couple of episodes, not just just in terms of plot, but also pacing, cinematography, subtle exposition, and general creepiness.
November 10, 2025 at 4:34 PM
Unbelievable first couple of episodes, not just just in terms of plot, but also pacing, cinematography, subtle exposition, and general creepiness.
Tenure-track opening at my institution in the urban history of modern Europe, with a preference for an interest in migration, the environment, and/or cultural diversity in the history of towns and cities in any area of Europe: networks.h-net.org/jobs/69160/f...
Fordham University - Tenure-Track Assistant Professor, Modern Europe: Urban History | H-Net
networks.h-net.org
November 10, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Tenure-track opening at my institution in the urban history of modern Europe, with a preference for an interest in migration, the environment, and/or cultural diversity in the history of towns and cities in any area of Europe: networks.h-net.org/jobs/69160/f...
P.S. I love Steely Dan although I prefer The Royal Scam and (the highly underrated) Countdown to Ecstasy.
November 9, 2025 at 5:30 AM
P.S. I love Steely Dan although I prefer The Royal Scam and (the highly underrated) Countdown to Ecstasy.
Wow - that was just a guess! 79th and 5th Ave!
November 9, 2025 at 5:29 AM
Wow - that was just a guess! 79th and 5th Ave!
Somewhere on 5th Avenue, maybe the 70s or 80s?
November 9, 2025 at 5:19 AM
Somewhere on 5th Avenue, maybe the 70s or 80s?
This is really great, about the NY Times, but about the media in general.
My old pal Pete Coviello — one of the best writers and thinkers I've ever known — wrote the piece of the moment
lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...
lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...
Maybe Don’t Talk to the New York Times About Zohran Mamdani
It’s remarkable, the people you’ll hear from. Teach for even a little while at an expensive institution—the term they tend to prefer is “elite”—and odds are that eventually someone who was a studen…
lithub.com
November 9, 2025 at 4:58 AM
This is really great, about the NY Times, but about the media in general.
Reposted by Asif Siddiqi
Finally got my copy of @historyasif.bsky.social book, Cosmic Fragments. Now time to ruin it with notes and highlights!
November 6, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Finally got my copy of @historyasif.bsky.social book, Cosmic Fragments. Now time to ruin it with notes and highlights!
from the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (RGANI), translated into English (2/n)
November 4, 2025 at 4:55 AM
from the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (RGANI), translated into English (2/n)
68 years ago today the dog Laika was launched into orbit, the first living being to break the bonds of gravity. Unfortunately she died soon after. I found the previously classified document on her fate in a Russian archive. Here's what it said about her fate #laika (1/n)
November 4, 2025 at 4:53 AM
68 years ago today the dog Laika was launched into orbit, the first living being to break the bonds of gravity. Unfortunately she died soon after. I found the previously classified document on her fate in a Russian archive. Here's what it said about her fate #laika (1/n)
I am definitely thinking of leaving.
October 31, 2025 at 8:07 PM
I am definitely thinking of leaving.
Journey into Mystery # 115? Is the “Tamam shud” from Omar Khayaam?
October 30, 2025 at 5:22 AM
Journey into Mystery # 115? Is the “Tamam shud” from Omar Khayaam?
Reposted by Asif Siddiqi
Gonna talk in entomology class today about how Jewish scientists forced to work in Nazi concentration camps secretly sent fake vaccines to the eastern front and managed to kill 4,000 Nazis with typhus.
Vaccine subterfuge: How vaccine-makers fooled the Nazis from inside a concentration camp lab
Confined first at Auschwitz then Buchenwald, a Jewish microbiologist conspired with a ragtag team of scientists and rebels to send dud typhus vaccines to the German soldiers on the eastern front.
www.gavi.org
October 28, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Gonna talk in entomology class today about how Jewish scientists forced to work in Nazi concentration camps secretly sent fake vaccines to the eastern front and managed to kill 4,000 Nazis with typhus.