@dinostalgia
Cultural historian of extinction at work on DINOSTALGIA, a book about how dinosaurs became cultural artifacts, consumer goods, and spokes-creatures for consumption | Instructor @ UC Santa Cruz | Editor @ Contingent Magazine https://www.alisonlaurence.com
In the 1850s, before it was denuded by archaeologists and the tourism industry, 420 species of flowers and plants grew on the Roman Colosseum — and every single one is catalogued in amateur botanist Richard Deakin's Flora of the Colosseum of Rome (1855): publicdomainreview.org/collection/r...
Seven years ago, we published our first piece, a gorgeous essay by @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social. Since then, we've published nearly 400 pieces and paid every single contributor for their work. Thanks to everyone who's donated to, read, and taught with our magazine over the years!
“Imagination is a vital tool that any writer must deploy to access aspects of the past.”
Our latest, from Ben Nadler.
A legal mandate! Was heartened to see this decision come out the same day I was lecturing on the incentivized extirpation of California grizzlies. Past is prologue but not prescription 🐾
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
Herd of large, brown woolly mammoths walking out of a forest into a snowy clearing.
So pleased to have an essay in the latest issue of Configurations! It's called, "Stories of Arctic Crisis and Alaskan Mammoths: Neocolonial and Anticolonial Approaches to De-Extinction and Rewilding."
muse.jhu.edu/issue/56326
#mammoth, #Alaska, #neocolonialism, #woodbison, #colossal
Man uses tool on face of 20-foot clay bison sculpture in a dark workshop
Gary Staab is making an alarmingly large bison family that will travel among a number of museums this March. Some stops are only 1 day, so mark your calendars. www.si.edu/newsdesk/rel...
Black and white photograph of a man wearing a checked shirt standing next to a sign saying 'We do not have a dinosaur'.
#WyrdWednesday Sad times.
Snakepit Operator, Highway 66, Sayre, Oklahoma. Photo by Steve Fitch, 1973.
americanart.si.edu/artwork/snak...
"The 1927 expedition to Paris exposed the central contradiction of the early American Legion – an organization that sought to present itself as a benign custodian of memory and shared sacrifice in combat, yet one haunted by its history of vigilantism and exclusionary nationalism."
Self soothing by watching highlights from Yuki Kawamura's iconic debut on repeat. Shortest* player in franchise history, baby, let's gooo. www.youtube.com/watch?v=52uF...
*Nate Robinson is shorter, I'd wager.
Every child who learned to read English in New England before 1800 would have been familiar with an image of John Rogers being burned at the stake.
It was one of the main images reproduced in the New England Primer, and one of the first longer passages children learned to read independently.
This year, we are adding audio versions of many of your favorite articles, and donors to the magazine get early access through our private podcast feed!
Donate today and you’ll get to hear all of our monster series authors over the next few weeks, beginning with Sam Moore.
Lately, re: coyotes, cougars, and other Californians www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
Re: archivists 🧡
“Major historical dread meant something to me then, in that context, lifetimes ago, back in 2014 . . . It was an anticipatory dread of a history we had not yet lived.”
“[F]ull disclosure: as I write this during the first week of January 2021, in the midst of an insurrection a mile away at the US Capitol, my imagination is taxed, so I’m not 100% sure what we’re going to do. But we’ll figure it out.”
Our latest, from Oline Eaton. Look for Part 2 on Friday.
On the television, the Bears vs. Packers game. On the laptop, the Bulls game. Both Chicago teams won ❤️
Not at #AHA2026 but my heart is always in Chicago.
Seriously, I am shy, please come talk to me and save me from having to approach people cold.
Something new coming your way— audio versions of some of your favorite Contingent pieces read by the authors themselves!
Two cats peer out a window. One is a brown tabby with handsome stripes. The other is an adorable orange creature with a single eye.
A close up of the orange cat with one eye.
My favorite neighbors: two cats with three eyes between them.
A promotional image for an edited collection called "Lands of the Lost: A Field Guide to Dinosaur Parks Physical, Fictional, and for the Future." The collection editors Dr. Victor Monnin & Dr. Alison Laurence are putting out a call for contributions. Abstracts are due January 10, 2026 to dinoparkfieldguide@gmail.com. Find the full call at: https://tinyurl.com/dinoparks The background image is of the outdated-but-adored Iguanodon models at Crystal Palace Park.
A call for 🦕🦖🦣 contributors! With Victor Monnin, I'm editing a collection about extinct animal parks—it's a field guide, of sorts, that turns a critical eye on places real, imagined, and yet to be. Find the full CFP for LANDS OF THE LOST here: tinyurl.com/dinoparks #PaleoSky #HistSci #EnvHist #STS
!!! Amazing news!
I wrote in @contingent-mag.bsky.social about how a chance encounter with monsters in the archives led to my two books on monsters, science, exploration, maps, and culture.
1/🧵
🧪💙📚 🗃 #ancient #medieval #earlymodern #histsci #histmed #18thCentury #politics #HAMH #archives #libraries #arthistory
Oh, 2025. Some notable firsts for me this year: first time applying for food stamps, first creative nonfiction pub... So here's my wish for the new year.
May we, all of us, become fossils 🦖
*Fossil, as a figure of speech, is so often used pejoratively. I fundamentally disagree with that slander!
"My sources broke categories: they were monstrous. Studying them meant integrating methods from several disciplines — and being marginalized by the more conservative practitioners in all of them."
The final piece in our monsters series, from @drsurekhadavies.bsky.social
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Thank you for writing this!
The choice of Khaleesi continues to rankle, too, especially for a white wolf as a namesake of white lady savior trope for animals that, so de-extinctioners say, they foresee on lands stolen from Indigenous peoples, hopping right over them to some undefined Ice Age time.
Oh absolutely! The choice of "Khaleesi" removes these real-live animals from time and geographical context to an even more extreme degree. I can hear detractors say: "They're JUST names. It's not that deep." It is though, isn't it? These legends/fictions are lasting. And myths have persuasive power.
Thank you!!
Colossal named its first "de-extinct" dire wolves for the fratricidal founder of a now fallen empire and the twin he did in. These names... they've been gnawing at me! So, I wrote about lupine Romulus and Remus and snow-white mythmaking for @g-ehr.bsky.social.
g-ehr.com/essay/cry-wo... #Paleosky
