Jonathon Catlin
@joncatlin.bsky.social
Intellectual history, German & Jewish studies, climate catastrophe | Postdoc at the University of Rochester Humanities Center | PhD from Princeton | Edits @jhideas.bsky.social | Rochester • NYC • Berlin 🏳️🌈
https://rochester.academia.edu/JonathonCatlin
https://rochester.academia.edu/JonathonCatlin
Pinned
Jonathon Catlin
@joncatlin.bsky.social
· Nov 25
The special issue of New German Critique on "German Memory Politics at a Crossroads," which I co-edited with Andreas Huyssen and the late Anson Rabinbach, is finally starting to look real! It will be out in February 2026.
ngc.arts.cornell.edu/forthcoming....
ngc.arts.cornell.edu/forthcoming....
For @jacobinmag.bsky.social, Barry Trachtenberg criticizizes the moral abdication of @historians.org re. Palestine. Its leaders' decision to twice veto resolutions condemning scholasticide in Gaza "is not merely disappointing. It is antidemocratic and morally evasive."
jacobin.com/2026/01/hist...
jacobin.com/2026/01/hist...
Historians Have a Duty to Condemn Scholasticide in Gaza
An overwhelming majority of American Historical Association members voted earlier this month to condemn scholasticide in Gaza. AHA leaders overruled members to block the measure, opting for cowardice ...
jacobin.com
January 20, 2026 at 10:20 PM
For @jacobinmag.bsky.social, Barry Trachtenberg criticizizes the moral abdication of @historians.org re. Palestine. Its leaders' decision to twice veto resolutions condemning scholasticide in Gaza "is not merely disappointing. It is antidemocratic and morally evasive."
jacobin.com/2026/01/hist...
jacobin.com/2026/01/hist...
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
I hope all Jews and anyone who cares about us will read this excellent article by Jewish historian Barry Trachtenberg on "The End of Antisemitism: How the Fight Against Hate Became a Weapon of Repression"
contendingmodernities.nd.edu/global-curre...
I'm going to thread some of my highlights.
contendingmodernities.nd.edu/global-curre...
I'm going to thread some of my highlights.
The End of Antisemitism: How the Fight Against Hate Became a Weapon of Repression | Contending Modernities
By insisting that Israel deserved special treatment because of Jewish suffering the Israeli state and its supporters reinforced and exploited the very logic of antisemitism they claimed to oppose.
contendingmodernities.nd.edu
December 19, 2025 at 8:29 PM
I hope all Jews and anyone who cares about us will read this excellent article by Jewish historian Barry Trachtenberg on "The End of Antisemitism: How the Fight Against Hate Became a Weapon of Repression"
contendingmodernities.nd.edu/global-curre...
I'm going to thread some of my highlights.
contendingmodernities.nd.edu/global-curre...
I'm going to thread some of my highlights.
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
After the segment was pulled last month, its correspondent told colleagues in an internal email that this decision by editor-in-chief Bari Weiss was a “political one”.
CBS Airs ‘60 Minutes’ Segment On Deported Migrants That Was ‘Spiked’ Last Month
After the segment was pulled last month, its correspondent told colleagues in an internal email that this decision by editor-in-chief Bari Weiss was a “political one”.
www.forbes.com
January 19, 2026 at 7:35 AM
After the segment was pulled last month, its correspondent told colleagues in an internal email that this decision by editor-in-chief Bari Weiss was a “political one”.
“It is sometimes said that Schmitt’s Großraum inspired Hitler, but in fact Hitler had called for a ‘German Monroe doctrine’ as far back as 1923, more than 15 years earlier.” Also: “Trump is not a fascist but a narcissist.” - Brendan Simms for @theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Has a Nazi theorist’s vision of a world divided into 'great spaces' found a new advocate in Trump? | Brendan Simms
Carl Schmitt wanted empires that dominated the small countries in their orbits. But the US president’s chaotic actions are not that strategic, says Brendan Simms, director of the Centre for Geopolitic...
www.theguardian.com
January 20, 2026 at 4:27 AM
“It is sometimes said that Schmitt’s Großraum inspired Hitler, but in fact Hitler had called for a ‘German Monroe doctrine’ as far back as 1923, more than 15 years earlier.” Also: “Trump is not a fascist but a narcissist.” - Brendan Simms for @theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
While the US was defunding universities, China was synthesizing food from the air! Zhejiang University, which now tops Harvard in research output, only broke into the top 100 universities in 2017. Truly a meteoric rise. The 21st century does not belong to the U.S.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/u...
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/u...
January 15, 2026 at 3:25 PM
While the US was defunding universities, China was synthesizing food from the air! Zhejiang University, which now tops Harvard in research output, only broke into the top 100 universities in 2017. Truly a meteoric rise. The 21st century does not belong to the U.S.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/u...
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/u...
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
In an essay in the JHI Blog’s forum on political economy, Facundo Rocca discusses the relationship between modern rationalizations of unjust labor, ecological destruction, and the rise of the Caribbean slave trade.
web.sas.upenn.edu/jhiblog/2026...
web.sas.upenn.edu/jhiblog/2026...
How Reason Cultivated Abstraction: The Plantation Roots of Economic Modernity
by Facundo Rocca
This think piece is part of a JHI Blog forum: “The Return of Political Economy in Intellectual History.”
web.sas.upenn.edu
January 12, 2026 at 2:49 PM
In an essay in the JHI Blog’s forum on political economy, Facundo Rocca discusses the relationship between modern rationalizations of unjust labor, ecological destruction, and the rise of the Caribbean slave trade.
web.sas.upenn.edu/jhiblog/2026...
web.sas.upenn.edu/jhiblog/2026...
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
Mississippi’s largest synagogue was set on fire before dawn Saturday. Fire department ruled it arson, and a suspect has been arrested.
It is the same synagogue that the Ku Klux Klan bombed in 1967 because the rabbi supported civil rights. mississippitoday.org/2026/01/10/f...
It is the same synagogue that the Ku Klux Klan bombed in 1967 because the rabbi supported civil rights. mississippitoday.org/2026/01/10/f...
Predawn fire reduces parts of Mississippi's largest synagogue to charred ruins - Mississippi Today
A fire heavily damaged Jackson’s only synagogue before dawn Saturday – the same house of worship that was firebombed by the Ku Klux Klan in 1967 because the rabbi had been an advocate for civil rights...
mississippitoday.org
January 11, 2026 at 12:31 PM
Mississippi’s largest synagogue was set on fire before dawn Saturday. Fire department ruled it arson, and a suspect has been arrested.
It is the same synagogue that the Ku Klux Klan bombed in 1967 because the rabbi supported civil rights. mississippitoday.org/2026/01/10/f...
It is the same synagogue that the Ku Klux Klan bombed in 1967 because the rabbi supported civil rights. mississippitoday.org/2026/01/10/f...
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
“We could take the oil facilities, you know, put troops in there. We could kill leaders of the regime. Presumably, you could do another raid or you could use drone strikes and you could kill some of them. There’s a lot more things we could do.”
– regular conversation in the New York Times.
– regular conversation in the New York Times.
January 7, 2026 at 12:04 PM
“We could take the oil facilities, you know, put troops in there. We could kill leaders of the regime. Presumably, you could do another raid or you could use drone strikes and you could kill some of them. There’s a lot more things we could do.”
– regular conversation in the New York Times.
– regular conversation in the New York Times.
These photos from New Year's Eve 1989 in Berlin, two months after the wall came down, capture the fashion of wearing Palestinian keffiyehs on parts of the German left in the '70s and '80s. A forgotten history, and perhaps also the origins of the Antideutsch critique? Source: The Berliner Magazine
December 31, 2025 at 2:53 PM
These photos from New Year's Eve 1989 in Berlin, two months after the wall came down, capture the fashion of wearing Palestinian keffiyehs on parts of the German left in the '70s and '80s. A forgotten history, and perhaps also the origins of the Antideutsch critique? Source: The Berliner Magazine
Elad Lapidot in @blnreview.bsky.social: If "war is collective deconstruction" of conflictual worldviews, the moral catastrophe in Gaza marks a breakdown of conceptual foundations akin to other turning points in intellectual history.
blnreview.de/en/ausgaben/...
blnreview.de/en/ausgaben/...
December 30, 2025 at 5:49 PM
Elad Lapidot in @blnreview.bsky.social: If "war is collective deconstruction" of conflictual worldviews, the moral catastrophe in Gaza marks a breakdown of conceptual foundations akin to other turning points in intellectual history.
blnreview.de/en/ausgaben/...
blnreview.de/en/ausgaben/...
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
In an essay in the JHI Blog’s forum on political economy, Nate Holdren elaborates three levels of analytical abstraction at which intellectual historians invoke the term "political economy," turning our attention to the way that capitalism structurally conditions ignorance of the social totality.
Three Meanings of Political Economy: Reflections on Intellectual History, Marxism, and Capitalism’s Unthought
by Nate Holdren
This think piece is part of a JHI Blog forum, “The Return of Political Economy in Intellectual History.”
web.sas.upenn.edu
December 29, 2025 at 3:46 PM
In an essay in the JHI Blog’s forum on political economy, Nate Holdren elaborates three levels of analytical abstraction at which intellectual historians invoke the term "political economy," turning our attention to the way that capitalism structurally conditions ignorance of the social totality.
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
From the NYT today, 2 charts on the brokenness of American politics:
December 27, 2025 at 3:11 PM
From the NYT today, 2 charts on the brokenness of American politics:
Thrilled to see this out!
December 27, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Thrilled to see this out!
In which Habermas "regards the Frankfurt School tradition as 'more alive' in the US than in Germany."
My Habermas review for the FT www.ft.com/content/9f89... Jürgen Habermas: Germany’s political and cultural phenomenon
Jürgen Habermas: Germany’s political and cultural phenomenon
Two new books bring fresh insights into the philosopher who has towered over seven decades of German public life
www.ft.com
December 24, 2025 at 6:26 PM
In which Habermas "regards the Frankfurt School tradition as 'more alive' in the US than in Germany."
Do I start my nephew’s teen existential crisis off early by giving him this for Christmas?
December 23, 2025 at 11:56 PM
Do I start my nephew’s teen existential crisis off early by giving him this for Christmas?
In @thediasporist.bsky.social, @dirkmoses.bsky.social asks whether Holocaust memory has run its course: "If anyone has killed belief in Holocaust memory, it is Western political classes whose misuse of it to justify an undeniable evil have destroyed its currency."
thediasporist.de/is-holocaust...
thediasporist.de/is-holocaust...
Is Holocaust Memory Over? – the Diasporist
How the German political and media classes have hollowed out the lessons of history
thediasporist.de
December 23, 2025 at 4:22 PM
In @thediasporist.bsky.social, @dirkmoses.bsky.social asks whether Holocaust memory has run its course: "If anyone has killed belief in Holocaust memory, it is Western political classes whose misuse of it to justify an undeniable evil have destroyed its currency."
thediasporist.de/is-holocaust...
thediasporist.de/is-holocaust...
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
Senator Bernie Sanders will administer the oath of office to New York City’s Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani during his public swearing-in ceremony at City Hall on January 1. trib.al/ylTzosO
December 22, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Senator Bernie Sanders will administer the oath of office to New York City’s Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani during his public swearing-in ceremony at City Hall on January 1. trib.al/ylTzosO
Grateful for this gift from my wonderful colleague Lisa Cerami! She saw me use this New Yorker illustration in a presentation on my catastrophe project a few weeks ago and decided to blow it up into matching posters for our offices.
December 22, 2025 at 6:33 PM
Grateful for this gift from my wonderful colleague Lisa Cerami! She saw me use this New Yorker illustration in a presentation on my catastrophe project a few weeks ago and decided to blow it up into matching posters for our offices.
In the latest piece I edited for our @jhideas.bsky.social Blog forum on political economy & intellectual history, Alec Israeli looks to "the historical intertwining of ideas and commodities" by reading Marx together with reports on the iron industry in the 19th c. US
www.jhiblog.org/2025/12/22/m...
www.jhiblog.org/2025/12/22/m...
Mind, Matter, and the Question of Materialist Intellectual History
by Alec Israeli
This think piece is part of a JHI Blog forum, “The Return of Political Economy in Intellectual History.”
www.jhiblog.org
December 22, 2025 at 6:24 PM
In the latest piece I edited for our @jhideas.bsky.social Blog forum on political economy & intellectual history, Alec Israeli looks to "the historical intertwining of ideas and commodities" by reading Marx together with reports on the iron industry in the 19th c. US
www.jhiblog.org/2025/12/22/m...
www.jhiblog.org/2025/12/22/m...
Those seeking to blame the global rise in antisemitism and despicable attack at Bondi Beach on the “genocide libel” of Palestine solidarity should first look to the dangerous conflation and co-optation of Judaism with Israel’s militarism and genocidal campaign by the Zionist right.
December 19, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Those seeking to blame the global rise in antisemitism and despicable attack at Bondi Beach on the “genocide libel” of Palestine solidarity should first look to the dangerous conflation and co-optation of Judaism with Israel’s militarism and genocidal campaign by the Zionist right.
In a new piece I helped edit in our JHI forum on intellectual history and political economy, @lottelist.bsky.social complicates Koselleck’s rosy view of liberal economist Adam Smith as “sober” and free from the ideological blinders of utopian continental progressive philosophies of history
In a new piece for the JHI Forum on political economy, Lotte Liste critically situates Reinhart Koselleck's concept of the Sattelzeit with Adam Smith's philosophy of history. @lottelist.bsky.social
Economy and History in the Sattelzeit: On Adam Smith’s Alleged Sobriety
by Lotte List
This think piece is part of a JHI Blog forum: “The Return of Political Economy in Intellectual History.”
web.sas.upenn.edu
December 18, 2025 at 12:49 AM
In a new piece I helped edit in our JHI forum on intellectual history and political economy, @lottelist.bsky.social complicates Koselleck’s rosy view of liberal economist Adam Smith as “sober” and free from the ideological blinders of utopian continental progressive philosophies of history
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
Part II of this interview about Federico Marcon’s new book covers its relation to the recent “Fascism Debate," debts to Frankfurt School critical theory and other forms of historical semantics, impact on the conceptual historian's craft, and more. @joncatlin.bsky.social @uchicagopress.bsky.social
The Disadvantages of “Fascism” for Life: An Interview with Federico Marcon (Part II)
by Jonathon Catlin
www.jhiblog.org
December 1, 2025 at 5:16 PM
Part II of this interview about Federico Marcon’s new book covers its relation to the recent “Fascism Debate," debts to Frankfurt School critical theory and other forms of historical semantics, impact on the conceptual historian's craft, and more. @joncatlin.bsky.social @uchicagopress.bsky.social
I've arrived in DC for the @jewishstudies.bsky.social conference to speak on the breakdown of Holocaust memory after October 7 into universalist and particularist strands on the panel "Modern Jewish Thought in Question: Typologies, Legacies, and Political Stakes." Friends, say hello! #AJS2025
December 14, 2025 at 2:22 PM
I've arrived in DC for the @jewishstudies.bsky.social conference to speak on the breakdown of Holocaust memory after October 7 into universalist and particularist strands on the panel "Modern Jewish Thought in Question: Typologies, Legacies, and Political Stakes." Friends, say hello! #AJS2025
“With memory culture routinely used to justify genocide abroad and securitization at home – and a climate in which explicit dissent from Germany’s policy dogmas triggers cancellations or even police interventions – they described a society sliding into a kind of intellectual paralysis.”
December 11, 2025 at 3:09 PM
“With memory culture routinely used to justify genocide abroad and securitization at home – and a climate in which explicit dissent from Germany’s policy dogmas triggers cancellations or even police interventions – they described a society sliding into a kind of intellectual paralysis.”
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
Since we’re on the topic of tearing down buildings, I got the author copies of my book (!!). Real in the world December 2
TL;DR: Detroiters have a lot to teach us about how material conditions reproduce white supremacy w/o racist people and policies. Tearing things down isn’t a clean slate
TL;DR: Detroiters have a lot to teach us about how material conditions reproduce white supremacy w/o racist people and policies. Tearing things down isn’t a clean slate
October 23, 2025 at 10:10 PM
Since we’re on the topic of tearing down buildings, I got the author copies of my book (!!). Real in the world December 2
TL;DR: Detroiters have a lot to teach us about how material conditions reproduce white supremacy w/o racist people and policies. Tearing things down isn’t a clean slate
TL;DR: Detroiters have a lot to teach us about how material conditions reproduce white supremacy w/o racist people and policies. Tearing things down isn’t a clean slate