I haven’t yet seen the Odyssey so I have nothing to add to The Discourse except these amazing sculptures of sirens, which I just encountered at a museum:

I’m sorry to hear this news—what an amazing scholar!

Princeton University@princeton.edu · 3w ago

Princeton University remembers Hans Aarsleff, a "towering" scholar of the history of the study of language.

Any ideas for great undergraduate-friendly scholarly readings to be paired with Midsummer Night’s Dream on an introduction to the major course? (So a course not terribly historicist in general bent…) Also welcome ideas for fun theory readings that can stand alone to get prospective majors excited?!

I’m about to submit the final version of my book: coming soon! <but first all those hitting-send 🦋 🦋 🦋…>

You all, it was a *huge* success. My students had a beautiful encounter with historical books that don’t ever leave Special Collections. Here is an English professor, two librarians, and a prison educator with a trunkful of rare 17-18thc books! More books in prison! Library access for everyone!

Courtney Weiss Smith@cweiss-smith.bsky.social · last mo.

I’m so excited! This week in my @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social Center for Prison Education course—rare books! I’ve been working with our amazing Special Collections librarians to facilitate bringing some early editions of 17th, 18th, and 19th century poetry into the prison…

I’m so excited! This week in my @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social Center for Prison Education course—rare books! I’ve been working with our amazing Special Collections librarians to facilitate bringing some early editions of 17th, 18th, and 19th century poetry into the prison…

6/26/26 Palindrome Day

I am *thrilled* to share that we are hiring again! A tenure track job in early modern literature! I’ve found Wesleyan a terrific place to work—help us spread the word? wesleyan.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/career...

I am so proud to be part of this program! Shakur celebrated on campus this weekend, and I just left the commencement ceremony inside the prison today. A student provided artwork for the leaflet:

James Sims@simsjames.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Wesleyan University’s Center for Prison Education is the longest-running college-in-prison program in Connecticut. It was inspiring to have Shakur Collins complete his degree on campus and walk at commencement after being released from incarceration—the first in our Completion Scholars program.

in Estonia for the international network for the theory of history conference; have decided that this will be the vibe I’m aiming for this summer—somehow both jaunty & nonplussed…

A Comment on Our Times; Or, Laurence Sterne predicted AI?

Happening tomorrow!

I had an Athena joke, but I can’t remember it, what with this terrible headache…

Prof MNP@nushpowell.bsky.social · 5mo ago

My Cassandra joke was great, but no one listened.

so exciting that this book is in the world it is fierce and rigorous and also fun to read

Erin Kappeler@erinkappeler.bsky.social · 5mo ago

In honor of the publication day of The Enclosures of Free Verse (uncpress.org/978146969306...), here's a little thread about what the book does and does not offer.

Now that Faculty Council has been dissolved and our administrators from the Dean level up have been replaced by political appointees, a free press is the only place UT Austin faculty have to speak up. www.austinchronicle.com/news/ut-head...

UT Head of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Speaks Out • The Austin Chronicle

On Monday, the Chronicle spoke with Lisa Moore, who has served since 2023 as the chair of UT-Austin’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department – a department that is now being collapsed with ...

austinchronicle.com

Friends! We are looking for a visiting assistant professor with expertise in 17th century literature. Help me spread the word? It’s limited term, but I can promise wonderful students and lovely colleagues for a very nice bit of teaching experience… wesleyan.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/careers/job/...

PSA @weslpress.bsky.social is now accepting applications for its Cardinal Poetry Prize, for poets over 40 who have not published a poetry book. www.weslpress.org/the-cardinal...

- Wesleyan University Press

$1,000 cash prize and publication by Wesleyan University Press  Submissions will be open February 1–28, 2026. Click here to submit! Guidelines Author

weslpress.org

What a set of lines!

Danielle Clarke@rhetorician.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Am reading over our edited Southwell texts (thanks @luckyj1.bsky.social and Vicki Burke) and it’s such a joy to hear her poetic voice: “poor man…poor water bubble/Thou are but slime, but dew, jelly possessed, A house of skin whose basis stands on trouble” 1/2

7year old this morning: Mama can I look up where brain rot came from? Me: Oh, sure—I think it’s an internet thing but look it up… 7: It says here it’s from some author, Henry David Thoreau?! Me: ?!?!?! Dying laughing—but the OED also cites Walden for the first usage of the word…

It’s here! I’m delighted to share a new theme issue of @histandtheojrnl.bsky.social, “Philology Now.” Valeria López Fadul and I edited this issue, featuring smart contributions by Emily Apter, Peter de Bolla, Alan Durston, Cymone Fourshey, Claire Gilbert, Anthony Grafton… historyandtheory.org/64-4

Philology Now – Volume 64, Number 4 — History and Theory

History and Theory, Volume 64, Number 4

historyandtheory.org

CFP: “Embodied Knowledge Practices in the Early Modern World” Conference at the University of Amsterdam Monday, 15 June 2026 How do material conditions shape how & what we know about the natural world? #earlymodern #C18L 1/6

Has anyone written about nonmetrical rhyming in contemporary poetry? Like in Maggie Millner’s Couplets? I want to read something about how people (who aren’t carrying around the kind of historical associations I am) understand forms and formings and breakings in this kind of verse…

Cate Marvin’s “Death of the Humanities”:

I’m so excited for this book!

Olivia Smith@oliviasmith.bsky.social · 10mo ago

I've lost track of how many people over the past years I've told to watch for Elizabeth Scott-Baumann's next book coming out, and now it's here. Proper good ideas: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

First sign (literally) on campus of something I’m REALLY looking forward to this fall! www.wesleyan.edu/dac/exhibiti...

Ah! I just saw that Ruth Mack’s new book is out! Forget what I was planning to do today, will be reading instead 🤩 www.sup.org/books/litera...

Handicraft Philosophies | Stanford University Press

The term "Enlightenment" still carries its tie to a grand philosophical tradition that in Britain moves through Bacon, Locke, and Hume. But the literature and philosophy of the Enlightenment was full ...

sup.org

We are hiring a tenure track poet! I’m so excited / spread the word… wesleyan.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/career...

being in Indonesia and having a perfect breakfast is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about it… :)

in CLOSE READING FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social and I wrote a 36 page three-part introduction: What Close Reading Is, What Close Reading Does, and What Close Reading Has Been 30 pages of it is now online at @princetonupress.bsky.social press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century

A user’s guide to the fundamental practice of literary studies, providing context, examples, and practical exercises

press.princeton.edu