Alison Laurence

This one's for the taxidermy curious. We are legion, yeah? In "Coyotes, Cougars, Californians," I trace evolving display practices @nhm.org. It's a story about how one museum revises boundaries of belonging, featuring the late great P-22. @animalhistory.bsky.social #envhist doi.org/10.1525/ah.2...

Many people like to laugh at medieval illuminations of stag-snails, oh those funny medieval artists making up anim...

The Science of Lost Worlds is out! OA! illustrations by the magnificent Jim Robins, audiobook feat the amazing Boo Jackson as Prof Ichthy. Delicious paleontological #philsci for your reading/listening pleasure. So many people helped me make this - much greatful ucp.manifoldapp.org/projects/978...

I wrote about those antediluvians in The End of Oak Street for @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social. Thanks to @sayanniething.bsky.social for letting me get a little weird with the Michigan of it all! Some general spoilers, but only one specific one re: fate of the dog. #FossilFriday tinyurl.com/dinostories

🏺 🗃️ Archaeologists/Historians - please shoot me your favourite examples & sources on ancient named animals, the older the better! Prefer farm animals but others also welcome 🐏 🐂 🐖 🫏... 🐕 #histsky (I already have Bramati 2025, & Alivernini & Bramanti 2023)

A great, thoughtful essay about an interesting-sounding book and a decidedly so-so movie, with a pitch-perfect punchline.

HOW TO SURVIVE PREHISTORY from me and @stievenvdp.bsky.social is out April 27, 2027. Preorder now! tinyurl.com/282k4skk

Even more essays in this Ocean Reveries series have been released - Jessica Riskin, one of my all-time favs, excerpting from her new book on Lamarck: "Even the very simplest plants and animals—tiny, fragile, translucent algae and monads—contained the power of life." pioneerworks.org/broadcast/je...

“Though less enormous, less voracious, and lacking dramatic soundtracks to pave their entrances and exits, formidable flesh-and-blood, non-animatronic prehistorics do actually walk among us.” On gators: www.thebeliever.net/logger/21st-...

Alison is too kind and it's so exciting to see one's work being used so deftly (after a decade of it all just being in my head)!

"To exist alongside dinosaurs is impossible. Their narrative presence, then, brings other out-of-reach pasts into the frame." Alison Laurence reviews "The End of Oak Street" and "The Social Dinosaur": https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/end-oak-street-social-dinosaur-popular-imagination-prehistoric

Attention Philly Families! It is critical that we show Drexel and city government that our enthusiasm for the Academy of Natural Sciences is going strong! Bring your kids, friends, & neighbors down to the parkway on Saturday from 2-6pm. It's a kid-friendly rally to support the academy!

"Perhaps it’s easier for some to imagine relocating humanity to Mars than relocating sediment to save New Orleans." @brad.bolman.com for @pioneerwork.bsky.social: pioneerworks.org/broadcast/we...

Not me carefully writing out every “aside” in this script for a talk

This is the kind of headline opportunity which only comes along once or twice in a subeditor's career

Attention Philadelphia! We're hosting a rally to demand that Drexel University maintain The Academy of Natural Sciences Museum open to the public. Join us on Tuesday morning at 10am in front of the academy. Please spread the word, we need all hands on deck! RSVP here: luma.com/1qwnrqz2

Steven Connor on that “most untrustworthy” type of matter... sand — https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-dust-that-measures-all-our-time

Sometimes I doubt my book project: Do dinosaurs really function as spokes-creatures for consumption? Have I somehow Sokal hoaxed myself? Grateful for this reporting on a monstrous trend and vexed that this rex is being so defamed—I suppose that those who are extinct cannot legally be libeled.

Two chapters in and I've dog-eared almost every page... Will's book is *very* good, no surprise there, and his ideas were rattling around in my brain through the entirety of The End of Oak Street (also, imo, very good). #FossilFriday 🦕 Ask your library to acquire a copy of The Social Dinosaur!

So here we go then: the result of many years thinking about how dinosaurs make science and the imagination work together. It's written for both literary critics and scientists and my dearest hope is that it will help foster an academy where we talk to each other more

This will not end up on Saturday night live, but it should

Fund the Humanities just because. Fund the Humanities for more vicarious intellectual intercourse on Main. Whichever.

There is a lot to say about the Nolan Odyssey movie. But one point that I think has not been emphasized enough is: this is a film about living in LA, as Nolan, my erstwhile British compatriot and age mate, has done for years. I gather it’s a strange place.

“In that moment, what hope did Edwin and his father feel? What shame? When Edwin drank down his sister, did he remember the girl she had been—the one we do not know—or only imagine a fiend?”

"The historical record can only create a woman-shaped grave for Mercy Brown. She only gains a narrative after she dies." Our latest, from Genna Duplisea.

I don't think I have another taxidermy article in me, but ooh this is tempting. And rich. Any #envhist scholars out there want to write about Haaland's $750 "Whiskey Raccoon"? Currently sold out but the website promises, ominously, "inventory [is] on the way." wildbillswestern.com/products/h-m...

Wait everyone shut up for a second: the discovery of the Brachiosaurus holotype is at the exact midpoint between the founding of the United States and today (July 4, 1901)

Bonus recording now available to donors, or read the original piece on our website. contingentmagazine.org/2026/06/26/w...