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Asheesh Kapur Siddique

@asheeshks.org

History & political economy of culture; Associate Professor of History, UMass-Amherst. Opinions my own. Prefer email to DMs. https://asheeshksi.substack.com/ asheeshks.org/

2826 Posts9476 Follower2675 Folgt
Ipsita Chatterjea (she/her)@ichatterjea.bsky.social · 5d ago

Five decades later Harvard's Bottom Line Economics bites Harvard. U Chicago's "shovel the endowment into crypto" remains the more catastrophic stupid move. For now.

Asheesh Kapur Siddique@asheeshks.org · 6d ago

“Harvard paid McKinsey & Company at least $250,000 to consult on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ staff restructuring efforts, according to internal documents obtained by The Crimson.” www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 5d ago

There are a lot of important things going on. Maybe this isn’t a top twenty concern. But, this is actually workplace harassment, the kind that can get people killed.

@carmenlynn.bsky.social · 5d ago

The Koch Nazis are back “A shadowy network of conservative activist groups, backed by Koch-linked dark money, is deploying hidden cameras and mass public-records requests to hunt down and destroy the careers of college professors and administrators — and it's working.”

ceej@ceej.online · 5d ago

ANTHROPIC: Our son loves humanity and for the low price of trillions and trillions of dollars will usher in an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity! OPENAI: Our horrible oafish son is hacking web sites without our permission. ANTHROPIC: (eyes narrowing) Our son is also evil

Asheesh Kapur Siddique@asheeshks.org · 6d ago

“Harvard paid McKinsey & Company at least $250,000 to consult on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ staff restructuring efforts, according to internal documents obtained by The Crimson.” www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

Harvard Paid McKinsey $250,000 For FAS Consultation, Internal Documents Show | News | The Harvard Crimson

Harvard paid McKinsey & Company at least $250,000 to consult on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ staff restructuring efforts, according to internal documents obtained by The Crimson.

thecrimson.com

sakura christmas@prof-christmas.bsky.social · 6d ago

Unsurprising that all these cuts being made to #Harvard —from the Office of Student Services to the Writing Center to now the Dudley Co-op—are happening with input from McKinsey, a firm made up of The Second Worst People I knew in college there

Asheesh Kapur Siddique@asheeshks.org · last wk.

The center-left's decision to treat 'human development' and 'job training' as mutually exclusive tradeoffs makes it poorly equipped to offer a version of higher education to a public whose motivation for acquiring knowledge may be curiosity rather than the pursuit of a market advantage.

Matt Seybold@mattseybold.bsky.social · 7d ago

The question is not whether their can be constructive use cases for the litany of things we call AI. It is who controls the tech, but which use cases they select for investment/application. As yet, they select for totalitarianism. Until that changes…

Jeff Sharlet@jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 7d ago

Not having a solution isn't the same as there being no solution. Magical thinking--don't worry, AI will go bust; don't worry, it's not really that effective; don't worry, Trump's not popular--isn't a solution. I don't have any either! That doesn't mean they can't be found.

Anna Kornbluh@annakornbluh.bsky.social · last wk.

the history of art is not one of continual evolution into higher and better forms; there is debasement as well as refinement, and a novelty, even a transformation, may as well be bad as good. raymond williams

Des Fitzgerald@desfitzgerald.bsky.social · last wk.

There's lots that's batshit about UK academia of course, but this thing where every year a selection of everyone's publications get anonymously scored by their senior colleagues is by far the craziest aspect.

A post that says: "Just finished this year's round of internal REF reading: one of the many tasks in academia that is hidden from view. Always nice to read colleagues' work; less nice to have to write a report and score it against quite loose descriptors."
Asheesh Kapur Siddique@asheeshks.org · last wk.

JM Coetzee has a wonderful essay about the meaning of the "classic" that ends as follows. Possibly one downstream effect of the defunding of the humanities is that people have forgotten the function of criticism: www.scribd.com/document/814...:

Screenshot of the last two paragraphs of JM Coetzee's essay "What Is a Classic?" The screenshotted text reads: "So we arrive at a certain paradox. The classic defines itself by surviving. Therefore the interrogation of the classic, no matter how hostile, is part of the history of the classic, inevitable and even to be welcomed. For as long as the classic needs to be protected from attack, it can never prove itself classic. One might even venture further along this road that the function of criticism is defined by the classic: criticism is that which is duty-bound to interrogate the classic. Thus the fear that the classic will not survive the recentering acts of criticism may be turned on its head: rather than being the foe of the classic, criticism, and indeed criticism of the most skeptical kind, may be what the classic uses to define itself and ensure its survival. Criticism may in that sense be one of the instruments of the cunning of history."
EMILY WILSON@emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · last wk.

The oddest thing about the response to this essay is people who say it’s “personal”. You can disagree about some or all of it! I may well be wrong! But it’s not “personal” to analyze a film or other work of art, even negatively. Criticism is more than “Hurray!” or “Hiss!”

Asheesh Kapur Siddique@asheeshks.org · last wk.

I think the NYT will replace Ross Douthat and David Brooks with Tyler Austin Harper, Jesse Singal, and/or Thomas Chatterton Williams. "The Atlantic to Grey Lady pipeline" is a well-worn one.

Dave Karpf@davekarpf.bsky.social · last wk.

Turned this rant into a blog post. davekarpf.beehiiv.com/p/the-data-c...

The data center backlash Is working. That's why the New York Times is so concerned.

I have a

davekarpf.beehiiv.com

Dave Karpf@davekarpf.bsky.social · last wk.

I'm reading the "environmentalists are wrong about data centers" piece from the NYT and ohmygoditssofuckingbad. Apparently, so long as you're punching left, they'll just let you say any goddamn thing you please... www.nytimes.com/2026/07/25/o...

Asheesh Kapur Siddique@asheeshks.org · last wk.

What is frustrating about the new interest in the 'classics': Republicans are actively redirecting taxpayer funding to promote un-scholarly, right-wing versions of humanistic study in public university 'civic centers,' while Democrats remains uninterested in taxpayer funded humanistic education.