Tessera

Samuel Huneke

@schuneke.bsky.social

Historian of Queerness, Democracy, Dictatorship • Words in LARB, TNR, Baffler • represented by Inkwell Management • 🏳️‍🌈 • opinions my own

214 Posts2966 Follower 376 Folgt

Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · 5d ago

Does anyone have any idea where this Judith Butler quote might come from? Susan Neiman provides no citation.

Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · last wk.

Excited to read this!

Benjamin Carter Hett@benjamincarterhett.bsky.social · 3w ago

I have a cover for my book! Coming in spring 2027.

Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · last wk.

I’m pretty sure most people just want to be able to afford groceries

Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · 2w ago

What will it take for university administrations to actually take sexual assault seriously ffs? Everyone who has ever had to deal with Title IX offices knows that they exist to protect the institution and don’t really care about survivors.

Wonkette@wonkettemedia.bsky.social · 2w ago

Is Writing An Essay An Appropriate Punishment For Gang Rape? Cornell Is About To Find Out! www.wonkette.com/p/is-writing... By Robyn Pennacchia @robynelyse.bsky.social

Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · 2w ago

What… what do you mean you don’t know your own zip code? Our economy is run by morons.

Matt Ford@mford.bsky.social · 2w ago

Ezra Klein asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about AI making kids worse at math and reading. Huang’s reply: “Does it matter?” Then he said he doesn’t know his own address or phone number. “We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/o...

So the message of this research out of China, where you were seeing a lot of kids using A.I. to help them, was that when they were using the A.I., they were getting things done faster. But it turned out that the skills they were learning were not holding, that their actual personal performance, at least in the way we traditionally measure it, was degrading.

What do you think when you hear that?

The last part — I completely agree. Try to get a kid to do long division right now. The multiplication table is starting to be forgotten. Doing square roots, my goodness. Basic math is being forgotten. Does it matter?

That’s my question for you.

Yeah. I don’t think it does. I don’t think it does.

But there must be some set of skills that matter.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe not those. We’re going to discover new ones. Just maybe not those.

There are a lot of skills that don’t matter. My first confession, I actually don’t know my address.

Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · 2w ago

Headed to sunny Phoenix for the GSA

Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · 2w ago

What the actual f. Have these people no shame?

Jeff Sharlet@jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 2w ago

The provost of Dartmouth, at which I teach, has been using AI to write both academic papers & national op-eds, according to brave reporting by @thedartmouth.bsky.social. Many students are already bitter about AI. This leaves us as faculty no ground to stand on. www.thedartmouth.com/article/2026...

Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · 2w ago

Depressing result in the election in Mecklenburg Vorpommern. Another victory for the AfD. And a five alarm fire for the CDU. Their worst result in history.

Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · 3w ago

That it somehow also manages to be wrong is the most unhinged part of this chart. The century begins at year 0, not year 1.

Seth Rockman@sethrockman.bsky.social · 3w ago

I too have sometimes thought that a wall chart of this nature would be a useful addition to any History classroom.

A wall chart in a classroom explaining that the 1800s are the 19th century, and so forth

The Gaily Show @thegailyshow.org · 3w ago

The far-right, anti-immigration, and anti-LGBTQ rights political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) just won a key election in Germany's eastern state Saxony-Anhalt. Paradoxically, AfD is co-led by an out Lesbian. @schuneke.bsky.social breaks it down for us. thegailyshow.org/the-contradi...

The Contradiction of Alice Weidel: Inside Germany's Ascendant Anti-Immigrant Party Led by an Openly Lesbian Politician

To understand what AfD's victory means to Germany and Europe, we spoke with Dr. Samuel Clowes Huneke, associate professor of history at George Mason University.

thegailyshow.org

Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · last mo.

Finally reading this exposé about how the AHA has been using funds to hire a corporate lobbyist to quash its own members’ views. It’s entirely dystopian and I hope for the day when we have leadership that is actually responsive to the views of its membership. www.chronicle.com/article/a-sc...

Opinion | A Scholarly Association’s Secretive Washington Playbook

Did the American Historical Association ask a corporate lobbying firm for advice on how to silence its members?

chronicle.com

Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · last mo.

New name just dropped. I’ll be answering to Ethan from now on 😛

Megan L. Cook @meganlcook.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Come for the batshit cover art on this 1970 Mentor ed of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, stay for the incredibly bitchy annotated bibliography

Cover of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by Burton Raffel

SELECTED
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Several books cited only in the Afterword are here included; however, in all cases the annotations are by the translator.
Benson, Larry D., Art and Tradition in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Rutgers University Press, 1965.
Sensitive and learned discussion of sources; literary convention and characterization; style; narrative and descriptive techniques; meaning. The book is modest in tone but richly informative; much the best study in print.
Blanch, Robert J., ed., Sir Gawain and Pearl: Critical Essays, Indiana U.P., 1966. Very much a mixed bag: six essays, some of them horrendously awful, some spottily intelligent. Not recommended.
Borroff, Marie, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Stylistic and Metrical Study, Yale U.P., 1962. A rather ponderous, wordy, and frequently insensitive study of difficult matters; sometimes useful, but to be consulted with caution, despite the heavy scholarly apparatus.
43

44 Selected Bibliography
Burrow, J. A., A Reading of Sir Gawain and the Gren Knight, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965. Literary dully effective. Not recommended.
criticism on a very low level, though sometimes Fox, Denton, ed., Twentieth Century Interpretations of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, Prentice-Fall,
1968. A brief but sometimes rewarding collection; some of the essays are at best spottily intelligent, but the selection is distinctly superior to that in the Blanch compendium. Recommended, with due cas-tion.
Howard, Donald R. and Christian Zacher, eds. Critical
SIR GAWAIN A GREEN
Studies of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, University of Notre Dame Press, 1968. Useful; fuller than the Fox collection; sometimes a bit pedantic.
Kittredge, George Lyman, A Study of Gawain and the Green Knight, Peter Smith, 1960 (first printed in
1916). A highly speculative, well-written study de voted exclusively to literary sources, actual, pos-sible, and imaginary. Of moderate interest, it used both sparingly and appropriately.
Longnon, Jean, and Raymond Cazelles, eds., The Très Riches Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry, George Bra-ziller, 1969. No direct connection with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but many of the illustrations beautifully reproduced-are vivid evocations of the spirit, and often much of the detail, of the poem.
Loomis, Roger Sherman, The Development of Arthurian Romances, Harper Torchbooks, 1964. Biased and crotchety, but clear and, for the beginner, modestly informative; deeply traditional, hostile to much in contemporary criticism, Recommended, if used with due caution.
Savage, Henry L., The Gawain-Poet: Studies in His Personality and Background, University of North Carolina Press, 1956. A set of crotchety historical essays having no proven connecti a to the Gawain-poet and no relevance whatever to the poem. Na recommended.

American Prestige @amprestigepod.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Video Exclusive — Queer Conservatives and Timid Democrats w/ @schuneke.bsky.social Historian Sam Huneke is back on the program, this time to talk about performative conservatives, cautious Democrats, and much more. youtu.be/lFB4c6jCDC0

Queer Conservatives and Timid Democrats w/ Sam Huneke

YouTube video by American Prestige

youtu.be

rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 2mo ago

there are entire adults walking among us who believe the point of books is to extract the answers to SAT reading comprehension questions about them

Ш I really got into using Al while reading James Fenimore Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans." The text was far too dense for casual vacation reading. My first prompt asked:
• "I'd like a guide as I read The Last of the Mohicans who can help me understand what I've read and where the story is, without giving spoilers or getting ahead of my progress. Can you do this, chapter by chapter?"
• The robot agreed: "Cooper's sentences are long and his diction is archaic."
• It promised to give me "a recap of what's happened so far and clarify anything confusing... I'll stick strictly to what you've read. No hints about what's coming."

Luke O'Neil@lukeoneil47.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Dog brained fucking shit heads everywhere you turn www.axios.com/2026/08/11/r...

Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Axios writer: I melted my brain with AI. Not only can I no longer read, but I don't even understand the purpose of reading anymore. Here's how you can also do this. www.axios.com/2026/08/11/r...

Axios: AI has become my reading buddy as I've plowed through my summer book list, helping me keep track of plots and characters, unpack themes, and make sense of wordy, old prose.

Why it matters: The way many of us actually read books — a few pages before bed, a chapter at the beach, another on a plane — makes it easy to lose the thread. AI can help you pick it back up without starting over.
📖 I really got into using AI while reading James Fenimore Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans." The text was far too dense for casual vacation reading. My first prompt asked:

"I'd like a guide as I read The Last of the Mohicans who can help me understand what I've read and where the story is, without giving spoilers or getting ahead of my progress. Can you do this, chapter by chapter?"
The robot agreed: "Cooper's sentences are long and his diction is archaic."

Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I keep wondering how people like this deal with questions at conferences or from their students, since they clearly don’t put in the effort to learn or ponder anything themselves. Or do they have the LLMs handle those too?

Aparna Nair@disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 2mo ago

"History involves sorting and organizing hundreds of thousands of facts" I remain astounded by how loud and wrong people are about what history actually is.

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Megan Stevenson
@MeganTStevenson
I haven't heard people talking about this, but AI is an absolute game changer for doing historical research. History involves sorting and organizing hundreds of thousands of facts— a massive logistical/memory problem made so delightfully easy with agentic research. 1/
1:31 PM · Jul 29, 2026
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Megan Stevenson
@MeganTStevenson
·
Jul 29
I did an OCR conversion of all my PDFs to make text files, built a semantic search index, and can just let my agents roam free to answer questions, fact-check, dig up interesting stories, quotes, etc. It takes a lot of the hard work out, as well as a lot of the human error. 2/2

Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Arrested Development

ALT: Arrested Development

static.klipy.com

Jess Calarco@jessicacalarco.com · 2mo ago

Spoken like a man who has never had to shop for himself.

Tweet from former US Representative David M. McIntosh, writing about a photo of a Mandani press conference where Mamdani is speaking in a grocery store, holding a bunch of green bananas: "I, for one, do not want to eat the suspiciously green bananas from the government store."

Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I literally don’t use AI for anything. And where it’s forced down my throat (eg automated receptionists) it’s made my life strictly worse. I would welcome it disappearing overnight.

Alexander Glass@alexanderglass.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I have one answer.

..
kavishj611 5h
+ All the people who are anti-Al or want to slow Al progress, I have one question:
If Al disappeared tomorrow, could you still get through an entire workday without ChatGPT, Claude, or any other
Al tool?
Imagine Al was suddenly banned.
Would you actually be willing to give it up?

Terrence Peterson @tgpeterson.bsky.social · 2mo ago

You will still certainly not regret assigning my book

Terrence Peterson@tgpeterson.bsky.social · 2y ago

I will even zoom into your course

Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The waning appetite for book reviews is really depressing. I used to write tons of them and slowly over time, each publication I used to write for seems to have lost interest in them.

Mrs. Detective PikaBOO, Esq.@clapifyoulikeme.favrd.social · 2mo ago

Personally as a Jewish American I would appreciate if “Protestant unspecified” candidates kept us out of their mouths

Haley Stevens O @HaleyforMI
Abdul, we were both on the ballot in 2018. I was capable of winning my competitive primary and general election. You lost.
You lost by over twenty points to Gretchen Whitmer and you will lose to Mike Rogers by talking like this.
Everyone in America understands you want to blame all of your problems on Jewish Americans.
But buddy, let me be very clear, I will lower the costs of groceries, ban stock trading for elected officials, stop Trump's abuses of power, and protect Michigan manufacturing.
And you'll just be a celebrity whining and writing books to get even richer. You're part of the complainer class, looking for their next book or podcast deal.
Bro, I just want to work for Michigan.

Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Honestly living for thr drama. Definitely agree with Oates though www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ju...

‘The crude language of Maga folks’: Joyce Carol Oates criticises Emily Wilson for criticising Nolan’s Odyssey

The novelist suggested Wilson should have been ‘a wee bit more thoughtful and respectful’ towards a film-maker who may have helped boost her book sales

theguardian.com

Moira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I also appreciate Emily Wilson as a woman in a male dominated role, by which I don’t mean translator or classicist or public scholar but rather “curmudgeon.”

Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Apparently Emily Wilson has reached the hey kids get off my lawn stage of her career.

London Review of Books@lrb.co.uk · 2mo ago

‘Nolan has read at least the first line of my translation of 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘖𝘥𝘺𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘺 into iambic pentameter. In one interview, he cited my version of it: “Tell me about a complicated man.” But I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script.’ New, by Emily Wilson www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Wtf

Current Affairs@currentaffairs.bsky.social · 3mo ago

As Trump's anti-left Red Scare escalates, The Atlantic is helping normalize dehumanizing rhetoric by describing socialists as a "parasite." The Atlantic is a dangerous, reactionary propaganda rag disguised as Reasonable Discourse.

ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 3mo ago

jeeeesus

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Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Thank you for having me! It was a wonderful conversation with a lovely audience

Christine Schmidt @ceschmidt.bsky.social · 3mo ago

With huge thanks to @schuneke.bsky.social for his brilliant talk @wienerlibrary.bsky.social on his moving & incisive book, I Will Not Abandon You: Queer Women in Nazi Germany. Special thanks to @williamrossjones.bsky.social for the insightful conversation. And thanks to all who braved the heat!

A group of people listen to two speakers seated at the front of the room, facing the crowd.

Dr Anna Hájková @ankahajkova.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Das Land des Lächelns: queer German history. @schuneke.bsky.social

Sam (left) and Anna (right) grinning because they had a good breakfast

Samuel Huneke @schuneke.bsky.social · 3mo ago

wHo cOUld HAvE PredICtEd tHiS?

Lauri Donahue@lauridonahue.bsky.social · 3mo ago

futurism.com/future-socie... lol

As one New York financier told Financial Times journalist Gillian Tett, new hires who were seen as “AI natives” are turning out to have alarmingly shallow ideas. So much so, the anonymous finance worker admitted, that his firm now actively avoids seeking out AI-literate STEM graduates, and opts to comb through humanities students instead.