Author Archives: Jordan E. Taylor

Junto March Madness 2019: Round One Voting Continues

March 14, 2019 By in March Madness Tags: , , Leave a comment

Junto March Madness 2019After brisk voting on Tuesday and Wednesday, round one of Junto March Madness 2019 continues with the second half of this round’s matchups.

Voting for these matchups will end on Friday at 5:00pm EST.

A few things to remember: this is supposed to be fun! Try to enjoy it. We encourage you to take this tournament as an opportunity to explore digital projects that you haven’t seen before, rather than just voting for the ones you already know. Let us know what you find in the comments below, or by tweeting using the hashtag #JMM19.

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Junto March Madness 2019: Voting Begins for Round 1!

March 12, 2019 By in Digital History, March Madness Tags: , 2 Comments

Junto March Madness 2019Will there be upsets? Which digital project will be this year’s Cinderella story? Who will earn immortal glory as the #JMM19 victor? Today, we will start to answer those questions, as voting begins for Junto March Madness 2019.

We announced the matchups on Monday and we will begin with voting for the first four of our eight brackets today. Voting will end on Wednesday at 5:00pm (EST). Voting for brackets five through eight will begin on Thursday and end on Friday.

We encourage you to not just vote for your favorites, but to take the opportunity to explore some of the digital projects that you haven’t had the opportunity to use in the past. As you do so, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below or on Twitter using the hashtag #JMM19. As always, we hope you will engage with this competition in the spirit of good fun.

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Junto March Madness 2019: Announcing the Brackets

March 11, 2019 By in Digital History, March Madness Tags: , , 6 Comments

Junto March Madness 2019Are you ready? It’s time to unveil the brackets for Junto March Madness 2019.

This year, the tournament focuses on digital history projects relating to Vast Early America. Readers nominated an excellent field of digital projects, including venerable favorites and young scrappy upstarts.

Voting will begin this week in separate posts.

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Junto March Madness 2019 Begins!

March 4, 2019 By in Digital History, March Madness Tags: , , 64 Comments

Junto March Madness 2019It’s once again March and that can only mean one thing at The Junto: our March Madness tournament. We skipped last year to welcome our new members, so in case you’ve forgotten: you nominate, we bracket, and you vote. In previous years, we have hosted tournaments of books, articles, and primary sources in early American history.

This year, our tournament will focus on digital projects on early America.

Nominations open now and will close on Wednesday, March 6 at 5 p.m. eastern time. Consult the rules and add your nominations in the comments section below. Join in the conversation using the hashtag #JMM19. Voting will commence next week. Continue reading →

From Platform to Publisher: Facebook, the Early American Open Press, and Alex Jones

August 7, 2018 By in Commentary Tags: , , , , , , 1 Comment

Yesterday, Apple, Facebook, YouTube, and Spotify removed the content of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from their services. Jones has gained notoriety for propagating outrageous falsehoods on topics including vaccines, school shootings, and uh, *checks notes* space vampires. These decisions to remove Jones’s content come amid a growing public conversation about the extent to which technology and social media companies should act as stewards of truth. Facebook in particular has come under scrutiny for its role in spreading “fake news” in American politics and anti-Muslim propaganda in Sri Lanka, as well as CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s defense of Holocaust deniers’ ability to share verifiably false content on the site. Continue reading →

Review: Wim Klooster, Revolutions in the Atlantic World: A Comparative History, New Edition

July 18, 2018 By in Book Review, Recent Scholarship, Review / Q&A Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Wim Klooster, Revolutions in the Atlantic World: A Comparative History: New Edition (New York: New York University Press, 2018).

A few years ago, I found myself speaking briefly to a graduate student in another discipline who happened to share both my first and last names. He politely asked what I studied, and I vaguely explained that my dissertation related to the Age of Revolutions. Other Jordan considered this for a moment, and then asked “So what causes revolutions?” I’m embarrassed to say that this most straightforward of questions left me a bit flat footed. I could tell him what several historians thought about the particular revolutions they studied, but “revolutions” more generally? That was a big question. I think I muttered something about Arendt (as you do) and excused myself. Continue reading →

Q&A: Francis Spufford, author of Golden Hill

July 6, 2018 By in Golden Hill, Review / Q&A, Roundtables Tags: , , Leave a comment

Today, we conclude our week-long round table on Francis Spufford’s Golden Hill: A Novel of Old New York with an interview with Spufford himself. If you missed our earlier posts on the novel, you can find them here. Continue reading →