Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
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llassabe.bsky.social
Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
@llassabe.bsky.social
4K followers 3.5K following 390 posts
historian, author, speaker, podcaster
Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars (UNC Press, 2023), Degrees of Liberation (forthcoming!)

🎧 American Campus Podcast
https://linktr.ee/llassabe
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llassabe.bsky.social
Lauren Lassabe Shepherd @llassabe.bsky.social · Sep 13
If you're reading this please go to the library right now and ask to plumb the campus archival holdings. Chances are 60+ years ago a white guy wrote A History of This University and it's awful but it's a jumping off point for primary sources
llassabe.bsky.social
Free book idea if it hasn’t been written yet: Writers and Their Stimulants

I’m glad to let you interview me about my own caffeine and sugar habits
November 27, 2025 at 4:30 PM
Reposted by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
rcolesworthy.bsky.social
an author put their target manuscript completion date and their "worst case scenario" completion date in a proposal and I'm 💀. I love it. YMMV but I'm all for smuggling some personality and realness into your materials.
November 26, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Reposted by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
jraden.bsky.social
A huge thanks to @llassabe.bsky.social for inviting me to spend some time talking about AI in higher ed on American Campus!
Higher ed’s rush to adopt AI with Justin Raden - American Campus Podcast
grift, edtech, enshittificationReferences and suggested readings:Justin Raden. October 23, 2025. Higher Ed’s Rush to Adopt AI is About So Much More Than AI. Defector. American Vandal podcast and ...
americancampuspodcast.buzzsprout.com
November 26, 2025 at 2:59 PM
Reposted by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
jonathansjones.bsky.social
It’s officially pub day for Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America‘s First Opioid Crisis! Available at a bookshop near you. Thanks to everyone who made it possible to bring this research to life! 🗃️ @uncpress.bsky.social uncpress.org/978146968953...
Book stack of Opium Slavery on a table with curtains as a backdrop.
October 28, 2025 at 11:27 AM
Reposted by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
yungenchee.bsky.social
As the @albomp.bsky.social gov (94 seats!) tries to ram thru industry-serving regressive EPBC laws that'll see further biodiversity, climate & environmental damage, here's the current play on the @kudelka.bsky.social bingo card

A1, A2, B5, C1, C2, C3, C5, D1, D2, D3, E1, E2, E3
The iconic Jon Kudelka (multi-award winning Australian/Tasmanian cartoonist) 'Rusted-on Bingo' card that encapsulates the mentalities and retorts trotted out by rusted-on (diehard) Labor voters in response to criticism of their beloved party's policies and actions There's a red border decorating with snakes drawn in white and there're 5 x 5 squares A1: we've checked and better things aren't possible A2: we tried having a policy once and people didn't like it A3: preferential voting is a myth A4: tree tories! but at the same time the left wing A5: REAL AUSTRALIANS B1: the slightest criticism of labor will result in eternal tory rule and you love it B2: gas is somehow not a fossil fuel B3: the media! B4: running a candidate against a Labor incumbent is anti-democratic B5: you do not understand the real world (student politics) C1: the best way to oppose bad legislation is to vote for it C2: don't let the bare minimum be the enemy of the grossly inadequate C3: the Greens didn't vote for the CPRS in 2009 C4: if you think it's so terrible you should join (?) C5: we are lying and will actually do the opposite if we win D1: sure goal is bad, but it's also...good? D2: WEDGE! D3: we may be terrible but look at the alternative D4: the ETS apparently never happened D5: Bob Brown went to Queensland E1: only the impotent are pure! we're simply ineffectual E2: voters are very stupid E3: the Centre! way over here on the right E4: it's vital to avoid upsetting people who will never vote for us E5: we accept the science that fossil fuels dug up here but burned overseas don't count because what a shame i ran out of space At the bottom of the card: Bonus Round 1: repeats irrelevant question (meat tray) Bonus Round 2: petty ad hominem attack (game over)
November 23, 2025 at 9:45 PM
llassabe.bsky.social
Went tracking down a primary source and am now an hour deep into a brand new rabbit hole
November 23, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Reposted by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
gordonhodsonphd.bsky.social
#AcademicSky

If you're not listening to @llassabe.bsky.social 's podcast American Campus, you're missing out.

Latest episode is about sexual harassment on campus

americancampuspodcast.buzzsprout.com/2396665/epis...
Campus sexual harassment from Nixon to #MeToo with Celene Reynolds - American Campus Podcast
References and suggested readings:Celene Reynolds. 2025. Unlawful Advances: How Feminists Transformed Title IX. Princeton University Press. “What colleges (don’t) do about sexual violence with Ni...
americancampuspodcast.buzzsprout.com
November 23, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Reposted by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
maxkozlov.bsky.social
About that exclusive, "closed-to-press" MAHA summit last week with RFK and JD Vance: I got in.

Here's what I saw. 🧵 🧪

www.nature.com/articles/d41...
A glorious selfie with the official MAHA lanyard seconds after I made it past Secret Service screening.
November 21, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Reposted by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
ruha9.bsky.social
I need everyone, esp anyone working in education or tech (but really everyone) to WATCH THIS CLIP of @drtanksley.bsky.social discussing the technologies infiltrating our schools & psyches and how she is addressing it with our young people. youtu.be/5mtcSL4S3HQ
Howard University AI Panel
YouTube video by Tiera Tanksley
youtu.be
November 22, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Reposted by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
melissagiragrant.com
what’s funny (it’s not funny) is how many indie journalists, who—with next to none of the infrastructure propping up the zz’s of the business—not only report incisively on political power but do so without leaving years of embarrassing receipts about their relationships with subjects and sources
November 22, 2025 at 4:42 PM
llassabe.bsky.social
I’m on the campus of Texas A&M right now and people really do say howdy
November 21, 2025 at 7:16 PM
llassabe.bsky.social
Sometimes I read faculty essays on the so called demise of thinking, AI, low class attendance, etc and realize some people actually just hate their students

Faculty working conditions suck, student learning (and working!) conditions suck. Everyone should be punching up
November 21, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
asheeshksi.bsky.social
we live in hell
Screenshot of post from Chronicle of Higher Education promoting interviews with Jill Lepore and G. Gordon Gee.
November 20, 2025 at 8:18 PM
llassabe.bsky.social
If anyone is interested in a reading list on the history and political economy of the academy, send me a DM and I’ll share a massive google doc
merleeisenberg.bsky.social Merle Eisenberg @merleeisenberg.bsky.social · 19d
Alright let me try this ask again: what should I read about how higher ed works to continue my learning?
merleeisenberg.bsky.social Merle Eisenberg @merleeisenberg.bsky.social · 20d
Trying to build up knowledge and maybe start a discussion group (locally? online?) for academics working in the field, but don't research higher ed. Read lots of Chris Newfield, lots of finance/budget books, other books from Hopkins on Critical University Studies. What else should I read/add?
November 20, 2025 at 12:44 AM
Reposted by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
ceaubin.com
TODAY ON TGS: we’re joined by the incredible Vanessa Williamson @vanessawilliamson.bsky.social to talk about death, taxes, and Martin Witherspoon Gary - a Confederate general who was willing to cause a lot of the former to avoid the latter. It’s a wild ride.
November 13, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Reposted by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
vanessawilliamson.bsky.social
Today is my birthday and look what came in the mail... my first-ever copies of my new book!

Thank you to @hcrichardson.bsky.social Theda Skocpol @jacobhacker.bsky.social @gabrielzucman.bsky.social and Robin Einhorn for their kind words!
October 16, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Reposted by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
andyhines.bsky.social
I’m on @llassabe.bsky.social’s wonderful podcast, American Campus, talking about University Keywords and how the book orients us towards shared study.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a...
University Keywords with Andy Hines
Podcast Episode · American Campus Podcast · 11/12/2025 · 47m
podcasts.apple.com
November 12, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Reposted by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
sethcotlar.bsky.social
One of the far right's current obsessions regarding education is that we need to bring back phonics. The idea is that "woke Marxism" has pushed phonics instruction out of schools because "they" want a pliant citizenry ripened up for Communism. Here's that same, far right argument...**in 1968.**
MYERS: Well, of course, Walter Blake held the job that Hatfield earlier held. While Walter Blake was somewhat of a flake - radical right - he did get close to 40% of the vote, but he still lost by close to 120,000. One of the most interesting stories in our family - and you know Elizabeth was, having been an elementary school teacher and an editor of My Weekly Reader who specialized in reading as well as English, Elizabeth was absolutely shocked with the simpleton approach that Walter Blake took to education. He was one of the early proponents of, and I know it's pronounced differently and a couple of different words are used, but whether you call it phonic or phonetics or something else. He was traveling the state, running for superintendent of public instruction, going to solve all our educational issues, just as Denny Smith will this year for governor, increase expenditures, never touch taxes. You know, just totally irrelevant. Walter Blake was doing this in spades in the primary of "Walter would be a terrible candidate. The fact that he was dean of men at Willamette University doesn't put a Hatfield mantle around his shoulders." I'm paraphrasing her there. I don't think she ever used that expression; that was mine. She said, "I have to go out and counter some of that." So she would find out if Walter Blake had spoken to a Republican women's group in Polk County, for example, or if he had been to a business group in Washington County. She would try to get on the program the next week or the next month. She would go in as a speaker without ever mentioning Blake by name, because she didn't want to have to give equal time and all of that, but she would talk about the same subjects, education and phonics. She would say, "As a longtime student of and teacher of reading, phonics is one of seven, eight, or nine ways to teach reading. It's not the only one, it's not necessarily even the best one. What's the first thing a child learns? He doesn't learn to read and write, h
June 13, 2024 at 5:39 PM
Reposted by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
evansmithhist.bsky.social
You guys have developmental editing?
November 11, 2025 at 9:31 PM
Reposted by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
michellechn.bsky.social
Have you seen this? ($5000 for a book proposal is **insane**)
Editorial Rates
About these rates The median rate ranges in the 2024 rate chart below are based on data from a survey administered to EFA members from November 2023 through mid-January 2024. One thousand respondent...
www.the-efa.org
November 11, 2025 at 8:42 PM
llassabe.bsky.social
Does anyone want to talk about publicity firms, developmental editing, and the whole enterprise around academic writing pre and post publication?

I was quoted $5,000 by a developmental editor when I reached out about *book proposal* materials. Lmao.

Yalls depts pay for this, I assume?
mattseybold.bsky.social Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 18d
There was a discourse on here awhile back (maybe it was even in the academic twitter days) about whether well-heeled writers of academic books hire PR firms. My position at the time was that this was pretty common in the ‘80s, ‘90s, maybe ‘00s, but basically unheard of today.

Guess I was wrong.
mattseybold.bsky.social Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 18d
I have now been pitched by their PR firm. My jaw is on the floor.
November 11, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Reposted by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
rcolesworthy.bsky.social
Today in incredibly generous things, my colleagues at SUNY Press decided to highlight me (!!!) for UP Week. Have I mentioned that I have the BEST coworkers in the whole world?? This past yr has been the most difficult of my life & they supported me every step of the way. ❤️ you guys. #TeamUP
sunypress.bsky.social SUNY Press @sunypress.bsky.social · 19d
For University Press Week, we're highlighting the important, collaborative work that Senior Acquisitions Editor @rcolesworthy.bsky.social does to build bridges across the scholarly publishing ecosystem: tinyurl.com/3t7mdnef/
#TeamUP #ReadUP
November 10, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Reposted by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
hannahgais.bsky.social
Chuck Schumer to the DNC.
"Hey! I'm so glad you reached out. I'm actually at capacity / helping someone else who's in crisis / dealing with some personal stuff right now, and I don't think I can hold appropriate space for you. Could we connect [later date or time] instead / Do you have someone else you could reach out to?"
November 10, 2025 at 5:43 AM
Reposted by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
rcolesworthy.bsky.social
Happy University Press Week! Have you told your university press how much you love them lately?? 🥰
November 10, 2025 at 12:49 PM