Mark Doyle
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markdoyle.bsky.social
Mark Doyle
@markdoyle.bsky.social
5K followers 2.2K following 3.3K posts
Historian & writer. Britain, Ireland, empire, music. Latest book is on John Cale's Paris 1919 for 33 1/3. Next: histories of African people/music in Ireland. “Pipe-sucking radical”-Mail on Sunday. Views here are my own, not my employer's.
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markdoyle.bsky.social
Happy Blackstar day to all who celebrate.
January 8, 2026 at 10:41 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
Greetings from East Nashville
A colorful sticker in a coffeeshop bathroom that says "Keep AI out of tattoos"
January 6, 2026 at 4:24 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
Homage to Eggleston
A bare lightbulb in a cracked and peeling ceiling at the Tenement Museum in Manhattan. It sort of resembles William Eggleston's photograph Red Ceiling (1973)
December 30, 2025 at 2:38 AM
markdoyle.bsky.social
A Christmas walk in Western Mass.
Footprints on a snowy trail, a clump of hikers in the distance.
December 25, 2025 at 10:19 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
A first step along the slippery slope toward Fraktur, no doubt.
The word Fraktur in the Fraktur font (the elaborate Germanic blackletter font favored by the Nazis until 1941).
December 10, 2025 at 2:51 AM
markdoyle.bsky.social
🤘
Screenshot of John Cale's recent Instagram post showing him and standing beside Charli XCX. She's smiling and resting her head on his shoulder.
December 4, 2025 at 1:07 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
#NowPlaying - Getting into the holiday spirit
Paris 1919 by John Cale
November 30, 2025 at 4:13 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
And in quite good company, I must say.
My essay, "The Consolations of Waterloo Sunsets," listed in the back of The Best American Essays 2025 alongside a bunch of other fabulous writers. Cover of The Best American Essays 2025, edited by Jia Tolentino
November 22, 2025 at 9:17 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
I'm dead serious, btw. Just bought the two by Bruno Schulz.
The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz Sanatorium under the Sign of the Hourglass by Bruno Schulz
November 15, 2025 at 5:27 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
I've just read one of the books from Philip Roth's short-lived (1976-83) series "Writers from the Other Europe" and now I need to collect them all. Mine was A Dreambook for Our Time by Konwicki. Stunning.

Great overview of the series by @neglectedbooks.com here. neglectedbooks.com?p=7808
Cover of A Dreambook for Our Time by Tadeusz Konwicki, translated by David Walsh
November 15, 2025 at 1:54 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
Finally watched Reds. Thinking about rewatching Reds.
Poster for the 1981 film Reds, starring Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton
October 25, 2025 at 5:41 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
Nashville
#NoKings
A large crowd on the lawn behind the Tennessee State Capitol A crowd and a Trump effigy A person in a green dinosaur suit and a man wearing a hand-lettered shirt saying "So I guess I'm antifa now." Protest signs. "Kings Suck" "No Kings, No Nazis, No Trump," etc.
October 18, 2025 at 7:00 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
The article is open-access. Here's the abstract.
Abstract This article explores the history and development of British manifestations of a Black diasporic anti-colonial anti-fascist political tradition that stretches across the twentieth century. It centers the experiences and reflections of Black activists and intellectuals in Britain, exploring their efforts to theorize about fascism as a manifestation of white supremacy. The article explores what we can learn about British society and political culture by returning to the overlooked and excluded experiences of Black British activists and intellectuals—in particular, their theoretical and physical encounters with what they called British “fascism” from the 1930s to the 1970s. Journeying from interwar anti-colonial Marxist political writing, Black periodicals in the 1950s and 1960s, to the publications of the British Black Power movement, the article ultimately argues that these encounters confront historians of modern Britain with a different and generative way of thinking about British racism and British fascism in relational terms.
October 17, 2025 at 4:45 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
Sliding into the weekend like:
Cover of the album A Tribute to Jack Johnson, by Miles Davis. Davis is shown in profile, in black and white, playing his horn with his knees bending forward and his upper body leaning back; together with the horn, his shape approximates that of the number 7.
September 26, 2025 at 8:51 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
I see ChatGPT is now going out of its way to make it easier for students to cheat with it. Not great.
Screen shot from the end of a ChatGPT-generated essay in response to an essay prompt from one of my classes. It says "Would you like me to make this sound more like a student essay (straightforward, with simpler phrasing and transitions), or keep it in this more polished, literary-critical tone?"
September 19, 2025 at 7:35 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
This tenth commandment is printed in large capitals.
Article from the Hobart (Tasmania) Mercury, April 4, 1938. Headline: The Ten Commandments of Capitalism. Subhead: "Mussolini is Always Right". The commandments are: (1) Remember that those who fell for the revolution and the Empire are marching ahead of your columns. (2) Your comrade ls your brother. He lives with you and will be at your side in battle. (3) You must serve Italy always; with every means, with work and blood. (4) The enemy of Fascism ls your enemy. Give him no quarter. (5) Discipline ls the son of armies. It prepares for and gives lustre to victory. (6) If you go forward to the assault with decision you already have victory In your grasp. (7) Complete and willing obedience ls the legionary's virtue. (8) There are no big things or little things; there ls duty. (9) The Fascist revolution has counted and counts on the bayonets of its legionaries. (10) Mussolini is always right.
September 4, 2025 at 1:12 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
PS. It's from 1984 and is narrated by Studs Terkel and here's what one commenter on YouTube said about it:
This is one of my favorite films, and one of the most important in my lifetime. I am nearly seventy, a retired professor. My Dad was a YCL member in Brooklyn and many of his older friends went to Spain to fight for the Republic in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Many, maybe most, did not return. I grew up with the songs you heard in this movie. They inspired me to fight for Civil Rights, for gay rights, to fight against anti-Semitism. My Dad and I went to watch this film together, shortly after it was released. Our emotions were inexpressible. Dad is now 95. I think he feels the same way still. I know I do. I am tremendously grateful to you for making this film available to all now. Thank you.
August 12, 2025 at 8:45 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
Roaring into the fall semester like
A tailless tuxedo cat lying in a silly position in an empty hallway.
August 10, 2025 at 8:13 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
Quite a few clustered around NYC
10 purple pegs in and around New York City
August 9, 2025 at 8:57 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
Each purple dot is a Black person identified in the sources as having been born in Ireland. These are just a few of many yet to be mapped.
Partial map of the USA with purple dots in places like Kansas, St Louis, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Grand Rapids, and several places in the northeast.
August 9, 2025 at 8:56 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
There were quite a few Black people born in Ireland who lived in the USA in the late-19th and early 20th centuries (there were even more in Ireland, of course). Here's one:
A story from the Tulsa World, September 27, 1906. Headline: Black but Not a Negro. Subhead: Patrick Jackson Told New York Judge He Was an Irishman. Text: New York, Sept. 26--Magistrate Breen, who boasts of his Irish parentage, was amused today by the claim of Patrick Jackson, who said he was an Irishman but looked like a negro. Jackson appeared against James Brown, a mullatto. Jackson spoke up in a brogue that startled the policemen in the court, and declared that the prisoner had slashed his left arm with a razor. "I'm an Irishman, your honor, and I was born in Cork," said the negro. Jackson was questioned in Gaelic and replied in the same tongue. "I'm black," said Jackson, "but I'm not a negro." Jackson admitted having a knife, but said he used it for peeling potatoes. Magistrate Breen, in discharging Brown, said he believed Jackson had provoked the quarrel and deserved what he got. "Real Irishmen," he said, addressing Jackson, "do not use knives."
August 9, 2025 at 5:04 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
#NowPlaying: It has taken me some time, but I'm finding myself absolutely floored by Mickey Newbury's records lately. Maybe it's because it's August (always the saddest month) or because an occasional dose of exquisite misery is appropriate to the times we're in, but I can't play this one enough.
Cover of Looks Like Rain, by Mickey Newbury
August 7, 2025 at 6:59 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
Today at the Resistance Cinema Club
youtu.be/v2iNBs-Mri8?...
Edge of Darkness, a 1943 Warner Brothers film about occupation and resistance in a fishing village in Norway starring Errol Flynn and Ann Sheridan
August 3, 2025 at 9:09 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
FYI this book is marvelous.
Resistance: the underground war in Europe, 1939-45, by Halik Kochanski
July 29, 2025 at 7:06 PM
markdoyle.bsky.social
Orb weaver weaving
A spotted orb weaver spider weaving its web against a dusky sky
July 27, 2025 at 2:24 AM