Markus Sam Merin
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markussammerin.bsky.social
Markus Sam Merin
@markussammerin.bsky.social
400 followers 200 following 120 posts
PhD Candidate, UMich History. Studying the death of Italian Communism. I saw a werewolf drinking a piña colada at Trader Vick's. His hair was perfect. 🕎
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"My dear son, my late great joy, am I thus leaving you without a father? An entire people - no, that is still too small - the human race will be a father to you"

-letter of a victim of the Nazi prison camps, reproduced at the 'Museo Monumento al Deportato politico e razziale' in Carpi
"this is how we talk in our own spaces" my group chats are full of Sonic the Hedgehog references and charts of precious metal prices. You need to get new friends
No, this is how Nazis talk in their own spaces. I don’t know abut this dude, but I never talked about gassing people and raping women when I was hanging out with my pals.
Reposted by Markus Sam Merin
My dad worked his whole adult life in the mines. He has black lung. Enforce the fucking silica rule.
Black lung is still killing America’s coal miners. Last week, a group of black lung patients made the long journey to Washington D.C. with a simple plea for Trump’s Department of Labor: enforce the silica rule, and stop this plague.

My report for @thenation.com www.thenation.com/article/poli...
Trump Has Handed Coal Miners a “Death Sentence.” But They’re Not Going Without a Fight.
After the government betrayed them by refusing to enforce a crucial workplace health rule, a group of coal miners traveled to DC to put Trump on notice.
www.thenation.com
Reposted by Markus Sam Merin
Your semi-regular pic of Bologna's tramway works

Via San Felice. In its narrowest point, this street is around 6.5 meters wide.

(Pic not mine)
Reposted by Markus Sam Merin
Like it or not, the emergence of historic preservation is deeply linked to car-lite policies.

When automobility became a mass phenomenon, there were only two viable options: either adapt the existing city to car mobility or curb down car mobility demand to make it compatible with the existing city.
Yesterday in the archives the former mayor of Bologna walked in and sat behind me and started reading a century-old socialist newspaper on the microfilm machine while I happened to be reading a speech he gave in 1988 from before he was mayor. This is such a weird place
There's (of course) always a lot of nonsense presentism in these sorts of conversations about "imagine if people back then were to see politics now"
Thank you for sharing, this looks great! All of my work on Emilia-Romagna is focused on the 70s and 80s, so it's really nice as an outsider to be able to see where my story leaves off
So you're saying that the tram lines I've been seeing built around town would have been functional by now if not for the scounrel - great, cool!
Do you have any sense for how, if at all, Guazzaloca's mayoral victory in '99 had any impacts on this project during his tenure or in subsequent decades?
Reposted by Markus Sam Merin
I'm wrapping up the case study of Bologna's 1970s - 1990s traffic plans, and I think that there are three main overarching policy takeaways:

- a strong initial vision, which is both simple and sophisticated;
- incrementalism, but with strong commitment over time.
- total pragmatism;
The curse of being a researcher in Italy is that the archival process is just as lonely as it would be anywhere else but because you work in a picturesque Mediterranean country no one will ever feel bad for you (and maybe they shouldn't)
It's funny more than anything
It's not that I have problems with people asking about things only kinda relating to my work , and I get the appeal of going to someone you think is an expert on something instead of trusting the internet. It's just that these are those kinds of questions we'll probably never have good answers to
Haven't watched it actually! Need to get around to it but I need to watch RAI's series "The Night of the Republic" first
Opening a folder in the Gramsci institute on the crisis in Modena's ceramics industry and a handwritten letter falls out

"Dear society,

I did it.

-Giulio Andreotti"
Being "the Italy guy" in my social circles means a lot of people reach out to me with questions about Operation Gladio/the years of lead I'm not equipped for.
"Did the French blow up the Ustica flight?"
"Did the CIA/KGB/Mossad kill Aldo Moro?"
Dude. I spent today reading about fishing cooperatives.
Reposted by Markus Sam Merin
Agriculture’s new album The Spiritual Sound is available everywhere today.

The record is a study in joy and intensity, carrying forward the ecstatic spirit of their debut while pushing deeper into grief, transcendence, and renewal.

Listen: youtu.be/k9yMIboriEY
@agriculturemusic.bsky.social
Do you have examples you'd be willing to share?
Reposted by Markus Sam Merin
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Which is also funny because when I was here two years ago the same people complained about big strike actions because of the notion that they were the cause of wage stagnation
At least in relation to the strikes here today, the biggest form of anti-strike discourse seems to be people cynically pointing at Italy's terrible history of wage stagnation and going "OH BUT IT'S GAZA YOU STRIKE FOR"
I don't understand how every person interviewed by this man doesn't commit harakiri after it goes to press
It feels like Miller's country sometimes these days
I would stand for the national anthem if they made it something cool, like "Tip Your Bartender" by Glassjaw