Meg Mulrooney
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megmulrooney.bsky.social
Meg Mulrooney
@megmulrooney.bsky.social
1.2K followers 660 following 610 posts
1stGen Administrator/Scholar. #GenEd #Faculty #civicengagement #publichistory #RacePlaceandMemory #campushistory #IrishAmericanhistory. Views here are mine alone.
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megmulrooney.bsky.social
Tomorrow’s forecast. Wtf is liquid equivalent precipitation”?
December 2, 2025 at 12:45 AM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
A friend brought us a plate of homemade Christmas cookies today. Grateful for friends in these strange times. Let the merry begin!
A festive plate of homemade christmas cookies. Some chocolate truffles, coconut bars, molasses crinkles, sugar cookie wreaths and peppermint bark.
November 30, 2025 at 11:07 PM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
In my inbox from UVA this AM.

The AUDACITY.
Screenshot of a UVA email announcing the virginia fund giving challenge and urging donations
November 14, 2025 at 4:25 PM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
Some photos from inside Big Story Bookstore:
A photo of an installation of books curving from the top of a high shelf like a great wave breaking. A big colorful chalked sign promoting big story bookstore. It says thank you for supporting our locally owned independent bookstore as well as other things like services and hours.
November 13, 2025 at 8:18 PM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
I thoroughly enjoyed Pleasant Hill and the various buildings, the village, the meeting house, the exhibits. This label you’ll like, Shirley:
Photo of a shaker chair in a display case. The pedestal of the case has the words i almost expect to be remembered as a chair, a quote by a shaker sister in maine.
November 12, 2025 at 3:00 AM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
I recently visited Pleasant Hill, KY and saw the giant built in cabinet in the attic. Very intractable!
November 12, 2025 at 12:16 AM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
Happy election eve to everyone stress eating. I don’t know what they did, but it IS chextra good.
Photo of a bag of chex mix with big words saying now chextra delicious as compared to previous recipe.
November 3, 2025 at 11:08 PM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
My collaged page made in the workshop for a collaborative zine. It shows my intent to go beyond traditional bounds of history class pedagogy by integrating zines. I already go beyond bounds but zines will get me even farther out!
A colorful collaged page for a zine. It features words like explore and transform cut from a magazine, stickers of travel images, text written in markers, titled Be Boundless in pedagogy.
November 1, 2025 at 1:35 PM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
Days later, I’m still feeling inspired to add zines to my 🗃️ pedagogy. I attended a JMU symposium, workshop, and art bookfair on zines that a colleague organized. A way to share institutional histories that are hidden. Do you assign zines? Lmk!
Shared Knowledge … thats really the point of zines, ti share ideas quickly and cheaply. Most zines are meant to be shared and passed on and its common to see anticopyright/copyleft disclaimers in zines encouraging readers to make and distribute their own copies scans of the zine and share with others. (Casio nd para 14) Photo of zine making supplies that an instructor brings to workshops and classes. Most are inexpensive office supplies like sharpies, gluesticks, tape, scissors, staplers
November 1, 2025 at 1:35 PM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
UVa seizing the moment or something
Screenshot of UVA Today e-newsletter with lead item uVA students invited to quote disagree with a professor endquote
October 24, 2025 at 3:33 PM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
A few days ago I had some quiet time at Pleasant Hill, the famed utopian Shaker community in KY. They built right along a turnpike and made every effort to convert people by example but ultimately their beliefs were far too radical, especially simplicity and equality. Very sobering.
October 9, 2025 at 2:02 AM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
I get to post this meme again! It’s my header for some reason.
That famous meme of a guy looking at a pretty woman and whistling while his actual girt looks at him in disbelief but the pretty woman is labeled the historic crises I’m living through and the girlfriend is labeled the historic crises I’m supposed to be researching. The guy is of course labeled ME.
September 28, 2025 at 11:08 PM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
Beautiful day to get outside and head to the local pumpkin patch. We have a CSA summer subscription and try to patronize local farmers in other seasons too. #bloomscrolling #fall
A fall scene of yellow and orange pumpkins and gourds on bales of hay. An old window is propped up in the background and bears the words happy fall y’all! A sunny day photo of an antique wagon carrying bales of hay, pumpkins and gourds. The pumpkin patch stretches out behind it and in the background rise the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.
September 28, 2025 at 10:45 PM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
A rainy fall day here in the Shenandoah Valley so we made hearty German fare: rouladen with gravy, red cabbage and mashed potatoes. All homemade. A delicious distraction.

I am so full.
A table with hearty German food. A tray of Rouladen which are small rolls of beef in gravy, also a bowl of mashed potatoes, a bowl of red cabbage.
September 27, 2025 at 11:44 PM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
Had a chance to meet & listen to @peterlevine.bsky.social share some solutions to Americans’ political polarization & disaffection: get connected-groups are powerful; be civil but not afraid to disagree (dialogue); learn nonviolence. See his book sites.tufts.edu/civicstudies... What Shall We Do? 🙌
A poster advertising an early Constitution Day fireside chat at JMU with Dr Peter Levine
September 9, 2025 at 2:55 AM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
Sister in law went to Swan Island annual dahlia festival and I’m jealous now. I may need to go next year. Imagine standing in those fields!
An antique truck with a bed bursting full of dahlia bouquets in colors of red coral pink lavender Close up of a Pom Pom style coral pink yellow variegated dahlia A large field of spiky petaled yellow and pink dahlias spreads into the distance shading into fields with red dahlias
September 4, 2025 at 12:16 PM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
Family in OR gifted us dahlias from Swan Island last year. They are gorgeous and thriving in VA! #bloomscrolling
Bright yellow dahlias in foreground with red ones in background Close up of a hand holding the stem of a red dahlia that has just opened
September 4, 2025 at 12:10 PM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
Early apples and splendid views of New Market Gap through the Massanutten Mountain. A beautiful day here in the Shenandoah Valley. #timelinecleanse
A row of tall, fruit laden apple trees stretch off into the distance. A blue sky with white clouds contrasts with the green trees. A view of a bucolic farming valley. Rows of hydrangeas and apple trees in the foreground give way to the valley floor with its green fields and the blue ridge mountains rise in the middle distance below blue skies. A close view of green farmlands and trees. The bluish green bulk of the massanutten syncline, a local mountain, rises in the background and a deep v shaped notch marks the new market gap where an old trail now state highway runs through the landscape.
August 31, 2025 at 8:38 PM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
DC’s museums and public spaces are so boring. I lived there in the boring ‘90s, when I was a boring historian with HAER/NPS, then lived in Arlington for a decade, and still go back every year to be bored at AAC&U. Met my boring DH there, too. Here we are being bored in DC last fall. ☺️
A boring whte couple standing in a park in front of a boring sculpture of a giant eraser
August 12, 2025 at 2:53 PM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
Hummingbird alert 🚨

Despite multiple plants they love, I don’t see as many in our yard as in years past, so seeing this one is a real treat.
August 12, 2025 at 2:35 PM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
No cheating. Your last saved celebrity photo is your therapist. Who is it?

Oh my.
Photo of Frida Khalo from an exhibit
August 3, 2025 at 1:59 AM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
I bought this beautiful summer bouquet from a local farm to brighten my mood. We have to pace ourselves, regroup, fight on. #bloomscrolling #hopescrolling
A brightly patterned jug filled with fresh summer flowers sits on a metal table outdoors. The flowers are marigolds, zinnias, snapdragons and yarrow, a riot of golds, yellows, reds and russets.
July 15, 2025 at 12:58 PM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
Anyway, I visited the “Beyond the Myth” Frida Kahlo exhibit at VMFA. About 50% her work, 50% images of her by fam & friends, all to pull back the curtain & reveal more of the actual woman. Nothing I didn’t know but a stunning experience, well designed space. I tried to capture it in the alt text.
Striking color Photo of Kahlo by her lover Nickolas Muray. She is wearing traditional Mexican but mostly black clothing, and is seated on a white floral cast iron garden bench in front of a green floral wallpaper backdrop so her figure stands out sharply. Her gaze is direct and peaceful. The curator argues that Muray’s formal portrait photos are the most beautiful of her and reflect their caring relationship, which was the opposite of her volatile relationship with Rivera. A replica of the white garden bench in front of a replica green floral wallpaper backdrop in the exhibit. A label encourages visitors to sit on it for a selfie and to reflect on Muray’s portrait of Kahlo and how they would want to represent themselves in a portrait photo. There were many such opportunities for visitor engagement in the exhibit. It was jarring that the people I saw engaging with the bench all smiled broadly, whereas Kahlo never did that for a posed portrait. The exhibit mimicked spaces from Kahlo’s home, Casa Azul, especially the famous blue walls with their red framed windows. Visitors moving through the spaces which were organized chronologically could always glimpse the future. In this photo we see through a red framed window into the next gallery where the vibrant circa 1953 Muray photo of Kahlo on the white garden bench hangs. It is quite small, only 8 by 10, set in a stark white mat, framed simply and hanging on a plain beige colored wall so her image pops brightly against the darker ground and deep red window frame. It beckons you to come take a closer look, but you know you have to wait to see her until you wind your way through the gallery. This is a still photo I took from a black and white 1950s film clip projected onto a wall in one of the galleries that focused on Kahlo’s time in New York City when Rivera painted his famous mural. The film clip was candid, not posed, and captures her seated in a wooden chair, feet propped on a concrete bench, sketching on a pad in her lap. She wears a fur coat and a small jaunty hat, very different from her usual clothing. She looks back at the camera over her left shoulder. She has just said something to the photographer and has smile on her face.
July 9, 2025 at 12:13 PM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
My garden is surviving the heat.
Close up of a garden bed. There is a large stand of purple coneflowers with orange day lilies and yellow yarrow on the edges. A blue pot of snapdragons and a blue birdhouse add more color.
June 25, 2025 at 11:10 PM
megmulrooney.bsky.social
Ugh. Spotted lantern fly nyphs are everywhere in our yard! Here is a pic of the little buggers on my roses. They are on our fig and fruit trees, too.

I’m prepping for battle!
A close up of a rose bush. Small black and white spotted lantern fly nymphs are visible on one of the canes.
May 31, 2025 at 7:27 PM