The Derelict Historian

The Derelict Historian

Sign in Subscribe

My Top 10 Movies for the Best Holiday of the Year

My Top 10 Movies for the Best Holiday of the Year

I’ve always been an aficionado for horror films, but I never actually made myself sit down and list the ones I think best represent the genre. This is in no particular order, and apologies if my tastes aren’t as obscure as you like…or are too obscure. I

The Beginning of the Age of Intolerance

The Beginning of the Age of Intolerance

When I studied the history of early modern Europe, one of the core topics in my readings was the development of modern religious tolerance and pluralism. To stuff a massive, far-reaching subject into just one question: how exactly did Western societies, in only the span of three hundred years, go

Black Bile

There are many great prophets of depression. I do believe it is true that, for some profound reason, Melancholia is the anti-saint of artists and philosophers and scholars. So there is no lack of guides to the experience of melancholy that ring true to its survivors. My personal favorite is

Cameron Hodge, the X-Men's Moral Majority Foe

Cameron Hodge, the X-Men's Moral Majority Foe

With the writers of X-Men ’97 doing a speedrun through some of the most memorable stories in the franchise, it was probably inevitable in the current climate that the debate over how “woke” the original comics are would creep up. Of course, the debate is already cast in bad faith

The Life and Times of Priscus, a Jewish Courtier of the Merovingians

Whether it’s a chance encounter with a Mormon missionary or an intimate conversation with a friend, most people have gone through one of the most awkward possible social interactions: proselytization. So, you can perhaps you can begin to imagine how intense an experience it was for a man in

Missy and The Queer Appeal of Villains

I want to be evil and trump an ace Just to see my partner's face I want to be nasty, I want to be cruel I want to be daring, I want to shoot pool. -Eartha Kitt, “I Want To Be Evil” Probably the biggest and earliest clue

The Rage of the Educated Underclass

I want to start this with a story of where I came from, a rural county just outside a medium-sized city in Virginia. Now, even when I was a kid, it was a pretty poor place. I knew that much even before I developed a lot of political and social

The Guy Who Wrecked The Byzantine Empire: Andronikos Komnenos

As a historian, the one unending debate that always comes up that I can never muster any interest in is the argument over the so-called “Great Man Theory” or, to be more equitable, “Great Person Theory.” It’s not that I don’t agree with the fundamental point that we

The Chevalier d'Eon and "Gender Ideology"

I really wanted to write a little fluff on a particular historical figure I happen to find interesting. However, the viciousness being targeted against trans people and the unhinged rhetoric of the so-called "gender criticals" has instead made me think of all this from the perspective of a

Spooky Science and the Hope for a Weird World

It's time for me to come out of the closet. Not that closet, but the closet I share with people as diverse as Mike Stoklasa from Red Letter Media, Hidden Figures and Ma star Octavia Spencer, and the singer Jason Molina. That's right, I believe in

Marcy Rhoades and the Paradox of Reagan Feminism

(This essay is a revised and slightly expanded version of a post written for my old blog Trash Culture). If you’ve followed me for a long time, you might have picked up that one of my favorite sources of nostalgia is Married…With Children. Watching it as the sort

Colonialism Was Pretty Awful, Actually

Or Why Do We Keep Letting Journalists Write About History, Seriously. In an interview, the Nigerian-American novelist Uzodinma Iweala stated how “the world really doesn’t acknowledge how bad and how detrimental colonialism was; that people don’t really try to explore it, you know, in popular media and news

An Ode to Comics and to Chaos

An Ode to Comics and to Chaos

One Christmas, when I was a kid, I got a grab-bag longbox of superhero comics as a gift. I’d already been a voracious reader for as long as I could remember, but something about the perfect fusion of art and words left a mark on me. I even aspired

Gender Panic

“Gender is a shell game. What is a man? Whatever a woman isn't. What is a woman? Whatever a man is not. Tap on it and it's hollow.” -Naomi Alderman, The Power For a couple of days on Twitter, there was an apocalyptic buzz among the

We Have Interface

Here's hoping this project of mine actually lasts and makes a splash. And yes, the title, "The Desk of Unending Torment", is partially a reference to the brilliant 1989 film, "Dr. Caligari." Be sure to subscribe in the meantime!