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Alexiana Fry

@alexianafry.bsky.social

HB/OT PhD; all things Bible, trauma, feminism, and migration.

503 Posts2116 Follower280 Folgt
Sonja Drimmer@sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 7d ago

Given that we are all upset today about Anthropic-shredding-books, I’ll add that I address this here, and it’s part of the same infrastructure threatening the preservation and profession of history but people don’t want to talk about that if the same industry is paying for their research.

It may be tempting to see value in projects such as the Schmidt Foundation - that's Eric Schmidt of Google - funding a fellowship in Al at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or the Musk Foundation's support of the Scroll Prize to use Al in reconstructing ancient texts in the burnt scrolls of Herculaneum. But these projects are simply two among countless others that have been seeding Al into museums and historical research for well over a decade. Even more egregious is the case of Al companies buying and destroying rare books en masse in the process of scanning them for data. In the context of the dire austerity we are witnessing, the juggernaut of tech money seems impossible to resist. But the public should know the dangers of ceding the precious work of peering into the past to those whose chief aims are to exploit it for data and build visions of our collective history to their own liking.
Sonja Drimmer@sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · last wk.

“AI has become a blunt instrument in the enterprise to impose precisely this form of sanctioned ignorance about America’s past...Taken together, [Trump’s & Musk’s] plans amount to a one-two punch, history in the hands of the corporate state.” My latest on AI & history: www.salon.com/2026/07/28/t...

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

"By the end of 2030," reports NYT, the amount of energy used by data centers"is expected to quadruple, eclipsing the power used by all countries in South America and Africa combined." This is extinctionism.

Shaily Patel@vox-magica.bsky.social · last wk.

“If immigration hadn't picked up my brother, my sister-in-law would still be alive, and the children wouldn't be going through this sorrow,” [Rolando Pérez Paz] said. “Unfortunately, immigration — the [U.S.] government — doesn't see that. It makes no difference to them.”

Matt Ortega@mattortega.com · last wk.

Stephen Miller said just the other day that all asylum claims are "fake." A couple deported from the U.S. to Guatemala were gagged, bound, and shot dead. Their 14-month old found crying next to their mother's body. People like Miller don't care though because this is the point: ethnic cleansing.

Daniel Munro@dkmunro.bsky.social · last wk.

I looked at the census data for PhDs in Canada ~10 years ago. I discovered that your odds of being a full-time academic if you hold a PhD were worse than your odds of playing in the NHL if you played in the OHL. (<20%) www.signal49.ca/product/insi...

Inside and Outside the Academy: Valuing and Preparing PhDs for Careers - Signal49 Research

A PhD is a prerequisite for an academic career, but fewer than 20 per cent of Canada’s PhDs are employed as full-time university professors. The majority of PhDs are employed in a wide range of reward...

signal49.ca

Seva@seva.bsky.social · last wk.

at this point if an undergrad asks about jobs in academia I nudge them toward something more practical like shark assassin

Alexiana Fry@alexianafry.bsky.social · 2w ago

Hey #eabs2026 folks: if you want to see this photo on at least two slides, check out the section hosted by the BEST (Daisy Andoh and Rae Fujimori) from 2:30-4:30p on gender in/and the Nordics. Gillian Glass is presenting our joint paper entitled “Diaspora Queens 2.0.”

Two gremlin lookin cuties being gremlins via text
Alexiana Fry@alexianafry.bsky.social · 2w ago

Super thrilled to have been part of attending the series and now responding to a paper by @jillhickskeeton.bsky.social on steampunk Doug Wilson version Esther - “for such a time as this” indeed 😉.

Jill Hicks-Keeton@jillhickskeeton.bsky.social · 2w ago

Presenting on Douglas Wilson and MAGA Esther in the Yale Renewed Philology Working Group's "Esther in Modernity" Workshop tomorrow. Thanks to organizers Elena Petrova-Libgober and Dror Birger (& of course to Jackie!) and to respondent @alexianafry.bsky.social. Check out the whole series.

David J. Bier@davidjbier.bsky.social · 4w ago

Video appears to show no damage to the vehicle of the man ICE killed in Houston, who had lived in America peacefully for 35 years, despite ICE's claim that he "rammed" an ICE vehicle and "tried to run over" an agent. These people are not credible.

David J. Bier@davidjbier.bsky.social · 4w ago

Video shows the moments before ICE shot a worker who lived for 35 years in the United States. It appears to show it was ICE attempting to initiate contact with his vehicle, not the worker attempting to "ram" ICE agents