Thanks to Critical Minded, I am honored to announce the publication of Beautiful Struggles: Critics of Color and the Pop Music Landscape, a new survey report I authored with brilliant colleagues examining the working conditions, professional pathways, and future of pop music criticism in the US.

“Everyone, especially in South Sudan, wanted to know if the US really had cut off aid. It was easier for them to believe that the aid organizations were lying to them than to think that the United States would do this.”

Trump destroyed USAID. Now people are dying.

ProPublica’s Brett Murphy and Anna Maria Barry-Jester examine how America’s foreign aid cuts are threatening the survival of the world’s most vulnerable populations.

motherjones.com

Had the pleasure of reviewing Making synthwave: How an online music community invented a genre by @blaisejess.bsky.social for the International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure. A must-read for any interested in digital music cultures (and check out that gorgeous cover)! 🌆📼🎹 rdcu.be/e9hGh

Have you heard of phonk? According to postdoc @lumarch.bsky.social, it's "music that you’ve probably never heard of, but you’ve almost certainly heard." The @nytimes.com recently spoke to March about the genre:

The Soundtrack of the Doomscroll Generation? It’s Phonk.

nytimes.com

In case you have never seen this.

CFP alert! 💻 My Center is currently accepting abstract submissions for our spring symposium, "Good Vibes Only? How Affects and Emotions Are Mediated for Justice in Digital Culture." Submit by 12/1! More info: www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/...

Call for Abstracts: 2026 CDCS Symposium

asc.upenn.edu

In a new essay for the Forum section of Celebrity Studies, I share some thoughts on how YouTube music critic and digital celebrity Anthony Fantano employs memes to build his dedicated fanbase, and how it relates to his murky digital history: dx.doi.org/10.1080/1939...

“Ya’ll know this is just my opinion, right?”: Anthony Fantano’s cultivation of authenticity and digital celebrity through memes

Published in Celebrity Studies (Ahead of Print, 2025)

dx.doi.org

When people learn with ChatGPT instead of following their own searches, they end up knowing less, caring less, and producing worse advice, even when the facts are the same. Friction is an essential ingredient for learning! Convenience makes us shallow. academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

Experimental evidence of the effects of large language models versus web search on depth of learning

Abstract. The effects of using large language models (LLMs) versus traditional web search on depth of learning are explored. A theory is proposed that when

academic.oup.com

teachers! excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone. take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE against-a-i.com

AGAINST AI

against-a-i.com

Today, the AAUP released a new report, "Artificial Intelligence & Academic Professions." The report calls for policies that prioritize economic security, faculty working & student learning conditions as AI tech accelerates. www.aaup.org/news/new-rep... 🧵1/9

New Report Calls for Faculty Control in AI Decisions

Today, the AAUP released a new report, Artificial Intelligence and the Academic Professions, sharing survey findings and calling for the establishment of policies in colleges and universities that pri...

aaup.org

Calling all music critics! Please take the Critical Minded Pop Music Critic Survey! Your answers will be part of a report by Critical Minded, a grantmaking and learning initiative fiscally sponsored by Allied Media. Feel free to share/DM me any questions! LINK: csulb.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

And of course thanks to UPenn for getting me here to get this cheesesteak. Excited to present tomorrow with @lumarch.bsky.social @jessmaddox.bsky.social @adrishaw.bsky.social and more.

CDCS Symposium: Reframing Leisure, Humor, and Play in Global Digital Culture

CDCS Symposium: Reframing Leisure, Humor, and Play in Global Digital Culture

asc.upenn.edu

For folks who don’t know, ethnic studies programs like African American/Africana Studies, Asian American Studies, Chicano Studies and the like come directly from civil right era campus activism. Attempts to disempower such programs should be framed as attacks on civil rights same as much else rn.

Another day where the presidents of every R1 university in the country should be our loudly & collectively in front of microphones calling out the authoritarianism, condemning the budget cuts that are an existential crisis for 🇺🇸 higher education & science, & doing anything other than more silence.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 2y ago

The federal government is attempting to dictate to a private university which departments it may have. If this flagrant first amendment violation doesn’t lead Columbia to grow a backbone and sue, I don’t know what will.

They don’t want women getting PhDs, they want them pregnant

Philip N Cohen@philipncohen.com · 2y ago

Heritage: "reducing federal higher education subsidies and loan cancellation that place the federal thumb on the scale in favor of spending years in postsecondary work of questionable value will help young Americans to start and expand their families." www.heritage.org/education/re...

Here is the program of our 4/25 Symposium on Reframing Leisure, Humor, and Play in Global Digital Culture www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/.... @annenbergcargc.bsky.social

CDCS Symposium: Reframing Leisure, Humor, and Play in Global Digital Culture

CDCS Symposium: Reframing Leisure, Humor, and Play in Global Digital Culture

asc.upenn.edu

Next Wednesday, 2/19 at 12pm, higher ed workers from across Philly are rallying to tell Senator McCormick: Hands Off our Healthcare, Research, and Jobs! Science and education are under attack. Join us at 2000 Market Street to fight back! RSVP here: labor4highered.org#register

Fascinating convo in the replies here

Ann Powers@annkpowers.bsky.social · 2y ago

Music journalists, can we think about this?

A wonderful opportunity for new PhDs in digital culture 😊

CDCS: Center on Digital Culture and Society@cdcspenn.bsky.social · 2y ago

We are inviting postdoctoral fellowship applications. Please apply by Feb 14 www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/...

"Meta’s HR team is deleting internal employee criticism of new board member, UFC president and CEO Dana White, at the same time that CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced to the world that Meta will 'get back to our roots around free expression,' 404 Media has learned" www.404media.co/facebook-del...

Facebook Deletes Internal Employee Criticism of New Board Member Dana White

"Insulting, criticizing, or antagonizing our colleagues or Board members is not aligned with the CEE."

404media.co

CDCS postdoc @lumarch.bsky.social recently spoke to @teenvogue.bsky.social about the social media reactions to the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting:

What the UnitedHealthcare CEO Shooting Memes Tell Us

The internet has been completely obsessed with this case.

teenvogue.com

Hey! The Cultural Studies Association just released its call for papers for its meeting in LA in 2025. Pls amplify! @academic-chatter.bsky.social @ejcs-journal.bsky.social @mediacomgold.bsky.social @jcultecon.bsky.social @culturalstudies.bsky.social www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/conference.h...

Conference

Each spring, CSA holds an international annual conference. As with other professional organizations, the conference members an opportunity to meet and network with other professionals in the...

culturalstudiesassociation.org

@cdcspenn.bsky.social postdoc @lumarch.bsky.social spoke to @washingtonpost.com about how grieving One Direction fans are processing Liam Payne’s death online: www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Grieving One Direction fans return to where they last met — online

Liam Payne’s death brought on real grief for Gen Z fans. The only ones who understand how they process it -- sometimes with dark humor -- are fellow Directioners.

washingtonpost.com

We're premiering on Bluesky with an announcement of our upcoming symposium on Academe in the Age of Social Media: Scholarly Inquiry at Risk? Jointly organized with @ascmediarisk.bsky.social www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/...

Academe in the Age of Social Media: Scholarly Inquiry at Risk?

Join the Center for Media at Risk and the Center on Digital Culture and Society for a symposium examining the relationship between social media and the academy.

asc.upenn.edu