Gabriel Finkelstein
@gabridli
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Biographer of the greatest unknown intellectual of the 19th century https://t.co/bLkYmejXPJ History, neuroscience, woks 🇺🇸🇫🇷🇩🇪
Denver, CO
Joined October 2013
Bordeaux is underrated. Quite a bit of it looks like a suburb of Paris, only the weather is nicer, the prices are lower, and it isn't thronged with tourists.
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Alexander von Humboldt is the Taylor Swift of German science
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@yuanyi_z @tweetsfromhere My first academic job was working as an adjunct at Penn. When I showed up for work they said "Who are you?" My boss had forgotten that he had hired me. I was fired and then hired back two weeks later at half pay.
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It's been seven years since I spent $400 to present a paper at the AHA and get kicked out of the book exhibit because my quiet six-year-old daughter didn't have a ticket.
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I assign books because no one remembers articles. Ask a student if they remember the author and argument of an article they read five years ago. I want this stuff to stick with them. Also, what will happen to academic publishing when we never assign books?.
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Since I'm being subtweeted about assigning books. 1. My semester is 15-16 weeks, not 12. 2. I assign a chapter or two per class. How is this a lot? We get through most books in 3 weeks. 3. Professors who don't assign this much reading—what are you doing instead?.
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A student told me he wants to visit all 50 states. I want to visit every beautiful French city. I just found out about Nancy. Someday.
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My daughter understands now why I like New Mexico so much. The view from White Rock is one of the best I know. Share your favorites if you can.
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When the press that cancelled your book and fired your editor asks you to review manuscripts that copy your work without citation
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Banon, a town in the middle of nowhere, has one of the best bookstores in France
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People who find Twitter arbitrarily weird and hostile should try graduate school.
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Why a lot of historians of 19th-century Germany pick institutional topics: it easy to read the sources
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In memory of Julian Benello, my childhood friend who died in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie on this date in 1988. He is in the front row on the far left in this photo from 1975. Condolences to all people who have been affected by terrorism, war, abuse, and injustice.
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@rrpre @HeeeresJerry I know a musician who quit her job in an orchestra to work as a realtor because she was only making $32,000 a year.
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Today I learned that one of my reviewers criticized me for not writing the book that he wrote.
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These dishes in Bologna cost less than a sandwich in Denver
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How historians never write.
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I am tired of reading dead scientists' mail. I want to be like those other scholars, the ones who get to assert stuff entirely without proof.
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Chédigny is a small French town that planted over a thousand rose bushes
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One year ago today: the park near my kid's middle school in Bordeaux. We would walk there after school to check the progress of the flowering trees. This was my favorite. France is such a lovely place.
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I love chauvinism. For $150 you can get an ugly room in a gross motel in rundown neighborhood of an American city. For $100 more you can stay in this five-star hotel in France. Maybe someday.
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One year ago today: my kid's middle school in Bordeaux. She walked there. Everyone was kind to her. France is such a lovely place.
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This is just to remind you that pretty much anything you order anywhere in France is going to be delicious.
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I lived 10 years overseas. I didn’t mind not fitting in. I never fit in at home, either.
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@JeffreyKirkwood I watched it in a cinema in Berlin in 1987. I was the only one laughing. My date said “That man makes me nervous.”.
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I lost 3 lbs in a day through food poisoning. Ask me how.
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By popular demand, the French burger picture of the day. Taken in Annecy. With a bonus wine stain that wasn’t coming out.
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So let me tell you about the Holocaust denier I had in class a few years back.
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I had a friend who dropped out of high school and started dressing up like Gandalf. Like in a cloak and hood and a homemade staff. Everyone thought it was a phase but it wasn’t.
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By popular demand, here's another French burger picture. This is from a chain restaurant. It's like your living in a burger commercial.
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French school children learning the elements of medieval warfare
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Five years ago: Cézanne’s ladder. Most inspiring thing I’ve ever seen.
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Alexander von Humboldt is the Kim Kardashian of German science.
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My daughter still hasn't forgiven me for not filling the piñata with candy on her sixth birthday. "I'm from New York," I said. "How was I supposed to know you had to fill it?".
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I spent my junior year of high school in Rennes. When I returned 40 years later I was surprised to find that the city had become kind of hip.
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By popular demand, here's a Bordeaux cheese shop I visited a year ago today.
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I went to school in Rennes in 1979. My friend lived around the corner from here, down that street with the red café.
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More on assigning books.4. Students will rise to the expectations you set. 5. I work at a poor, regional, state university. My students don't screw around. 6. This is how I like to teach. I understand other professors have different experiences.
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Assigned reading for a class on the modern history of travel and exploration
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Most culture is comfort food. People like it because they grew up with it and refuse to explore stuff that’s better.
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Billie Holiday threw up on my grandma’s bed.
You can only choose one - who’s your go-to jazz singer?. Ella Fitzgerald | Nina Simone.Billie Holiday | Sarah Vaughan
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Perfect $30 meal in Montauban two years ago (wine and tip included).
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My 13-year-old is getting better at ridicule. She makes fun of my French accent and then blames it on my baldness.
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Honored to learn that my plagiarists have earned a Max-Planck, MacArthur, Guggenheim, and the top award in my field.
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14 years ago I gave a lecture on Claude Bernard at the Collège de France. I'm really lucky I've been able to see the world. It's big and interesting.
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Get this—students have complained that my head is too shiny. They say it hurts their eyes.
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The German critic who complained that my 19th-century biography didn’t discuss the 20th has now lifted a major section without citing it.
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I’m all for diversity of opinion but this list is mediocre.
25 books that should be on every school curriculum but aren't:. Fiction:.1. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky.2. 1984 - George Orwell.3. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy.4. The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien.5. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley.6. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn.
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