New episode 📚📚 Onur İnal (@onurinal.bsky.social) on the rise of late Ottoman İzmir. The conversation discusses his book “Gateway to the Mediterranean: An Environmental History of Late Ottoman Izmir” (Cambridge University Press) 👇👇 turkeybooktalk.com/2026/08/04/o...

Onur İnal on the rise of late Ottoman İzmir

Turkey Book Talk #275 – Onur İnal of the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Vienna on “Gateway to the Mediterranean: An Environmental History of Late Ottoman Izmir” (Camb…

turkeybooktalk.com

Academic flees Turkey abt a decade ago (bc of political pressures), settles down in New School, and now advocates the firings of his colleagues www.nytimes.com/2026/08/05/n...

These 25 Artifacts Explain America www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Opinion | The 25 Objects That Explain America (Gift Article)

Want to understand this country? Look at our stuff.

nytimes.com

25 years after the tired American cliche of “why do they hate us,” helped instigate two forever wars (Afghanistan + Iraq), this is how @nytimes.com chooses to explain Iran’s political system:

Attention Coms & Media Studies scholars (and others, too). Designing your syllabi for the fall term? The @sshrc-crsh.canada.ca supported Global Media & Internet Concentration Project's data visualization tool and other resources available on our website make for great teaching tools.

This new article by @robtoes.bsky.social looks really good: Ambient Extremism in Reactionary Digital Politics journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

journals.sagepub.com

As if I didn’t receive enough fake book club emails, now it’s text messages 😡

Gift article “Eyal Weizman: the Strip was blanketed with “enormous dust clouds containing particles of the different materials that formed the building[s] & [their] environment—concrete, plaster, paint, glass, metal, sand, soil—some of which are synthetic & toxic.” www.nybooks.com/online/2026/...

Gaza’s Deadly Soil | Helen Epstein

Long before October 2023, Gaza’s people suffered international sanctions, a humiliating occupation, and periodic Israeli bombardments. Few could leave the

nybooks.com

The Israeli army has set fire to vast olive groves in the village of Yaroun in southern Lebanon 🇱🇧

Next up Oval Office address (ht @arifekose.bsky.social)

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 4d ago

Trump offering early access to online posts in move seen as corruption

Whenever I place an order, I tell them my name is Billy just bc I don’t wanna spell Bilge three times. Anyway, over the years I’ve seen Billy turn into Milly and Lilly but this is a first 🤣

🚨How to disable or avoid intrusive AI (ht @allisonvandev.bsky.social)

jessamyn@librarian.bsky.social · 5d ago

I work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful

Reminder my department is hiring! We're looking for an assistant teaching professor for the Journalism program. This is a teaching intensive position, not a research-based, tenure track job. A PhD or MFA is required at time of appointment. #academicjobs #journalismjobs

The Michigan premiere of Who Killed Alex Odeh? will be at the Arab American National Museum on Thursday, August 6th. Film starts at 7 pm. Make sure to get tickets beforehand. I hope to see you there!

If you are papermaxxing with AI and swamping academic journals with claude- or chat-prompted scholar-like content, then you are taking the time and labour of editors and reviewers that others who actually put the work in deserve instead.

Govt’s arguments here are eerily (but not surprisingly) similar to those used by Erdogan to jail activists, dissidents, academics

Mark Bray@mark-bray.bsky.social · last wk.

Love a good prof slam: “It’s bewildering. It seemed weird and laughable,” Davis said of the indictment. “It felt like the length of the indictment was a cover for how thin it actually was. I’m a professor. I’ve seen people pad out papers when they’ve got nothing to say.”

Seven arrested in Ankara ‘gay bar’ probe bianet.org/haber/seven-...

Seven arrested in Ankara ‘gay bar’ probe

Prosecutors alleged that the venue hosted sexually explicit entertainment and activities that violated “public morality.”

bianet.org

The Department of Media, Journalism & Film at Miami University is hiring an assistant teaching professor for its Journalism program. This is a teaching intensive position, not a research-based, tenure track job. #academicjobs #journalismjobs

The cost of the US war on Iran (not counting the cost to Iran nor of human lives) nor of long-term damage to the environment.

We’re hosting an info session tomorrow (Monday) at noon ET! Register via the link below! NYC librarians, archivists, artists, designers, and grad students especially welcome 🤗

Shannon Mattern@shannonmattern.bsky.social · 4w ago

Metro NY Library Council's Cross-Reference Coalition — an experimental school connecting librarians, archivists, grad students, artists, designers — is accepting applications for our fall class exploring PUBLIC STUDY: alternative/radical/progressive schools, lrng communities... crc.metro.org/apply/

I regret to inform you that “Clavicular is going to be honey-potted by the Kremlin” is now a comprehensible sentence

Elected Istanbul mayor in 2019, and set to be a candidate for president in 2028, Ekrem İmamoğlu is now the most famous resident of Silivri, Europe's largest prison complex. @kayagenc.bsky.social reports for @theguardian.com on his trial, which could take 12 years. www.theguardian.com/news/2026/ju...

‘This process has turned into a form of torture’: inside the trial of Erdoğan’s challenger

The long read: He was elected mayor of Istanbul in 2019, and had announced his candidacy for the 2029 presidential elections. But Ekrem İmamoğlu is now behind bars, and his trial, on charges including...

theguardian.com

This is a stunning article by @faisalahali.bsky.social, covering the radical history of Radio Mogadishu and ongoing efforts to protect its extraordinary archive. There's also embedded audio, if you're curious about how its broadcasts sounded! www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/...

Somalia races to save Radio Mogadishu’s fading archive

A small team is working to digitise decades of Somali history in the country's main public radio station.

aljazeera.com

Just when I say things can’t get any more absurd 👇

Çağdaş Üngör@cagdasungor.bsky.social · 3w ago

Governor dismissed because he was wearing tight trousers while he rode a bike. Issue first raised by an opposition MP !!!? t24.com.tr/gundem/bisik...

The open calls for our 2027 residencies are now online! 🔔 This year’s open calls seeks proposals offering alternatives to how we understand, respond to, and shape the technological conditions we inhabit. ▶︎ transmediale.de/en/news/open...

No one does commemorations better than Turkey😉253 taxis honoring the 253 ppl who died on July 15, 2016 the night of the failed coup.

Read about the trial of Imamoglu who would have been Turkey’s next president but has been behind bars precisely because of that. By @kayagenc.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/news/2026/ju...

‘This process has turned into a form of torture’: inside the trial of Erdoğan’s challenger

The long read: He was elected mayor of Istanbul in 2019, and had announced his candidacy for the 2029 presidential elections. But Ekrem İmamoğlu is now behind bars, and his trial, on charges including...

theguardian.com

Trump doesn’t force people to do bad things. All he did was show people they could get away with being horrible if they really wanted to, and a lot of powerful people decided they didn’t need to pretend anymore. Especially those in influential positions who could push back but did not.

I hope the gates to heaven are hosted today by hundreds of thousands of beautiful Iraqi and Iranian and Palestinian and Lebanese children and they get to decide