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John Raimo

@johnraimo.bsky.social

2.4K followers 4.1K following 2.6K posts

Historian of modern Europe. DE, EN, FR & IT; working on CZ (permanently) & NL. Mostly history, literature, & arts here; desperately trying not to post political content yet here we are now.

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John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · Feb 27

1/3 Brief reintroduction for Bluesky. I’m a professional historian mostly focused on postwar Europe, cultural & intellectual history, the history of the book, reading and publishing just now in German, French, Italian, and Czech contexts. Also keenly interested in political history, visual arts ...

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 21h

7/9:

“Che siamo schiavi, privi di ogni diritto, esposti a ogni offesa, votati a morte quasi certa, ma che una facoltà ci è rimasta, e dobbiamo difenderla con ogni vigore perché è l'ultima: la facoltà di negare il nostro consenso.”
~ Primo Levi

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 21h

6/9:

»Seid unbequem, seid Sand, nicht das Öl im Getriebe der Welt!«
~ Günther Eich

»Liebe und Arbeit sind die Eckpfeiler unseres Menschseins.«
~ Sigmund Freud

»Alles Nationale ist längst Provinz geworden.«
~ Thomas Mann

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 21h

5/9:

« S’il ne faut pas toujours dire ce que l’on pense, il faut toujours penser ce que l’on dit. »
~ Anne-Thérèse, marquise de Lambert

»Die Welt is nicht wahr, aber sie will durch den Menschen und die Wahrheit zur Heimkehr gelangen.«
~ Ernst Bloch

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 21h

4/9:

« Car l'angoisse est factice : nous sommes faits pour bien respirer. »
~ Gaston Bachelard

« L’espérance est un risque à courir. »
~ Georges Bernanos

« Le monde se défait. Mais je suis le monde. »
~ Aimé Césaire

« Faire et se taire. »
~ Gustave Flaubert

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 21h

3/9:

“It is a good rule in life never to apologise. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.”
~ P.G. Wodehouse

“The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think.”
~ Virginia Woolf

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 21h

2/9:

“In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love.”
~ Frank O'Hara

“It is a fearful heart that builds a wall and it is a fearless heart that can live without it.”
~ Tilda Swinton

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 21h

7/9: “Che siamo schiavi, privi di ogni diritto, esposti a ogni offesa, votati a morte quasi certa, ma che una facoltà ci è rimasta, e dobbiamo difenderla con ogni vigore perché è l'ultima: la facoltà di negare il nostro consenso.”
~ Primo Levi

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 21h

6/9: »Seid unbequem, seid Sand, nicht das Öl im Getriebe der Welt!«
~ Günther Eich

»Liebe und Arbeit sind die Eckpfeiler unseres Menschseins.«
~ Sigmund Freud

»Alles Nationale ist längst Provinz geworden.«
~ Thomas Mann

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 21h

5/9: « S’il ne faut pas toujours dire ce que l’on pense, il faut toujours penser ce que l’on dit. »
~ Anne-Thérèse, marquise de Lambert

»Die Welt is nicht wahr, aber sie will durch den Menschen und die Wahrheit zur Heimkehr gelangen.«
~ Ernst Bloch

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 21h

4/9: « Car l'angoisse est factice : nous sommes faits pour bien respirer. »
~ Gaston Bachelard

« L’espérance est un risque à courir. »
~ Georges Bernanos

« Le monde se défait. Mais je suis le monde. »
~ Aimé Césaire

« Faire et se taire. »
~ Gustave Flaubert

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 21h

3/9: “It is a good rule in life never to apologise. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.”
~ P.G. Wodehouse

“The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think.”
~ Virginia Woolf

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 21h

2/9: “In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love.”
~ Frank O'Hara

“It is a fearful heart that builds a wall and it is a fearless heart that can live without it.”
~ Tilda Swinton

Reposted by John Raimo

Jan-Werner Mueller @jwmueller-pu.bsky.social · 1d

"Precisely because they have been losing court cases over free speech and visas for foreign students, Trumpists now seek to entrap universities in a deal that effectively removes the protections of federal law and gives the administration arbitrary power over them."

US universities must reject Trump’s ‘compact’. It is full of traps | Jan-Werner Müller

The administration is trying to make nine universities an offer they seemingly cannot refuse

www.theguardian.com

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 1d

This is also a great book that I wish got more attention, just in case you don't know it and can crack through the French. (There's some Czech material in here, too.) And ... I'll stop nerding out here! www.cnrseditions.fr/catalogue/hi...

Traduire sous contraintes - Littérature et communisme (1947-1989) - CNRS Editions

Traduire sous contraintes - Littérature et communisme (1947-1989) (EAN13 : 9782271068095) édité par CNRS Editions - L’instauration des régimes communistes en Europe de l’Est entraîne une transformatio...

www.cnrseditions.fr

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 1d

Paweł Zajas (he's just just brilliant) & other scholars are starting to work on infra-Warsaw-Pact literary transfers, translations, &c., not least focusing on the Leipzig book festival which served--among a TON of others (Belgrade, Warsaw, &c.)--as a locus for postwar eastern literary exchanges, &c.

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 1d

Thanks for the kind note! Was just on the verge of pulling everything from Academia.edu given the new terms, but here's one thing though a bit more tilted to German-Czech issues: www.academia.edu/119518042/U_.... It should survive Google Translate if needed! Then there's a diss to keep revising ....

Übersetzen lektorieren, Lektorieren übersetzen. Zum Übersetzungsprozess von Věra Linhartovás Diskurs über den Lift im Suhrkamp Verlag (2024)

Zum Übersetzungsprozess von Věra Linhartovás Diskurs über den Lift im Suhrkamp Verlag Wie lässt sich eine Übersetzung lektorieren? Wie übersetzt man ein Lektorat? Wie laufen korrigierte Übersetzungen ...

www.academia.edu

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 1d

This is very much a question for @spoerhase.bsky.social ...!

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 1d

A general issue for intellectuals is recognizing ideologues who are *not* rational or good-faith actors, let alone fellow intellectuals. This in part also because a commentariat devoted to 'civility' and (professionalized) 'The Discourse ©' would obviate its own standing by recognizing these stakes.

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 1d

Going to brag a bit here ....

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 1d

Truly, truly delighted to see the great Pierre Guyotat and his last masterpiece brought into English by Peter Behrman de Sinéty and New York Review Books (@nyrb-imprints.bsky.social): www.nyrb.com/products/idi...

An audacious, unabashedly transgressive memoir about two acts of escape by the author: breaking from his family to seek a freer life in Paris and then, later, deserting the French military during the ...

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 1d

Pour @anthonyglinoer.bsky.social et @giselesapiro.bsky.social parmi d'autres #skystorians.

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 1d

Laurent Mauvignier : mémoires ravivées (avec Marie Richeux pour @franceculture.fr) www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

Laurent Mauvignier : mémoires ravivées

A partir du visage effacé d’une grand-mère sur les photos d’un album et d’objets retrouvés, l’écrivain Laurent Mauvignier redonne vie à ses aïeux et tisse une fresque bouleversante, où mémoire, imagin...

www.radiofrance.fr

Reposted by John Raimo

Dr Surekha Davies (she/her) @drsurekhadavies.bsky.social · 1d

A @sciam.bsky.social story on the cognitive benefits of hand-annotating books inspired my latest newsletter on maps, monsters, and making sense of Sir Walter Ralegh's "Brief and True History of Guiana" (1596).

🗃 #earlymodern #histsci #manuscript #maps #cartography

buttondown.com/surekhadavie...

Walter Ralegh's headless monsters and annotation as thinking

On writing and picturing as forms of thinking and knowledge-making, with examples of Renaissance mapmakers and publishers demonstrating exactly this in the...

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 1d

This is entirely on the NYT's conscience (as such 🤪) for enabling and legitimizing the grift, resentment, and hackishness at a crucial stage. Hope they enjoyed their 'centrism' while it lasted! Even that's going to get shut down under vicious ideologues like Weiss.

John Raimo @johnraimo.bsky.social · 1d

From one of our finest historians and moral voices in dark times: Omer Bartov, "Israel: What Went Wrong" (@panmacmillan.bsky.social, 2026; #skystorians). us.macmillan.com/books/978125...

A leading Israeli American scholar of the Holocaust explores and explains his native country's intensifying turn toward violence and exclusion.The distinguis...

us.macmillan.com