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Evan Torner

@guyintheblackhat.bsky.social

Associate Professor of German, Niehoff Professor of Film & Media Studies at U of Cincinnati; Scholar of East German cinema, science fiction, and role-playing games. He/Him. Bi. Wears a hat.

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Evan Torner@guyintheblackhat.bsky.social · 4h ago

"Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: You liberate a city by destroying it. Words are used to confuse so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their interests...[Words] must be so twisted as to justify an empire that has now ceased to exist, much less make sense."

Justin Hendrix@justinhendrix.bsky.social · 8h ago

United States President Donald Trump issues executive order instructing federal government agencies to "use the terms 'Super Intelligence' and 'SI' in place of 'Artificial Intelligence' and 'AI' and will not acknowledge the usage of 'Artificial Intelligence' and 'AI' in any applicable setting."

Evan Torner@guyintheblackhat.bsky.social · 14h ago

We are opening the "DARE TO STARE" photo exhibit in DAAP this week. Photos of people with disabilities and other othered populations from the 19th Century, now recontextualized by Dr. Theresa Leininger-Muller.

FREAKS IN SIDESHOWS "A disabled body is a hypervisible body, one that cannot escape being laden with an excess of meaning." People have gaped at those different from themselves for millennia. Sideshows became more formalized in 16th-century England and later were part of circuses and dime museums. The heyday of the freak show occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a time of monumental scientific discoveries but also pseudoscience, such as eugenics. Sideshows, located in their own tents and requiring an extra fee for admission, were among the most popular and profitable circus attractions. Freaks were defined by bodily features spectacular enough to make audiences want to stare. Costumes, props, extensive advertising, and the showcasing of unique abilities and talents turned people with disabilities into freaks. Some performers had physical differences and abnormalities from birth, some confronted society's perceptions of race, ethnicity, and gender, and others challenged norms with body modifications, such as tattoos or extremely long hair or beards. Those with congenital disabilities were the aristocrats of the sideshow world. The more unusual their bodies, the better chance they had to control their salaries and working conditions. Show promoters, such as P.T. Barnum, hyperbolized or outright falsified biographical details of some performers, labelling them as exotic or primitive wonders of nature, rare specimens, or beasts. Consumers, particularly those in rural areas or those who travelled little, reacted with fascination, curiosity, fear, and awe. Some entertainers themselves manufactured distorted public images-pure humbug--for advertising and to sell fictional autobiographies in souvenirs called pitch books. Showmen profited by exhibiting humans. A few took good care of their performers, some of whom outearned them. Others treated employees as property, controlling their earnings and personal lives, cruelly exploiting and demeaning them. In certa…DARE TO STARE: 19th-Century Circus and Sideshow Portraits A FotoFocus Venue Sept. 28-Nov. 10, 2026 Step right up! Dare to Stare examines celebrity culture in 19th-century circus and sideshow portraits and how these once-ubiquitous cartes-de-visite, tintypes, and cabinet cards entertained, educated, and served as memory aids. Enormous crowds engaged in bold looking at circuses and sideshows. Thrilled by colorful spectacles, death-defying acts, exotic cultures, wild animals, rousing music, and amusing clowns, audiences savored both watching dynamic performances in person and sustained gazing at performers privately afterwards by buying their photographic portraits, sometimes autographed in person. Featured are bearded ladies, living skeletons, fat people, tattooed bodies, clowns, conjoined twins, armless/legless people, a three-legged boy, a four-legged woman, snake charmers, elastic skinned men, albinos, knife throwers, acrobats, aerialists, excessively hairy folk, bicyclists, contortionists, fire eaters, jugglers, little people, giants, sword swallowers, levitating performers, strong men, trapeze artists, a double-voiced singer, a human pin cushion, and an impresario. Trained animals include elephants, big cats, horses, bears, dogs, birds, goats, and pigs, as well as snakes. Such performers wanted people to look at them. They made a living by appearing publicly on stage and by selling their likenesses. For some, such imagery led to both fame, fortune, and a measure of immortality as generations continue to pore over details of their portraits. We marvel at the obstacles they overcame, the skills they perfected, the exhausting travel they undertook, and the relationships they forged with each other and society at large. The three-part exhibition in three different wall cases- outside the DAAP Library, inside opposite the circulation desk, and outside Rm. 5401--includes 240 photographs by 86 artists, as well as pitch books, souvenir rings from giants, and colorful sil…Dare to Stare: 19m-Century Circus and Sideshow Portraits FotoFocus exhibition at College of DAAP Library, UC, Sept. 28-Nov. 10, 2026 Aronoff Building corner of Clifton and Martin Luther King, Jr. ALL EVENTS ARE FREE AND WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE. T, Sept. 29 Gallery Talk, 12:30-1:30 pm, just outside the DAAP library Curator and Professor of Art History, Dr. Theresa Leininger-Miller, will walk visitors through the exhibition themes, offering details about individual cabinet cards, cartes-de-visite, tintypes, and pitch books, featuring mini-bios of performers and photographers. Film screening-- The Greatest Showman (2017, 105 mins.), 3-5 pm, DAAP seminar room, Rm. 5480B Th, Oct. 1 Th, Oct. 29 F, Oct. 30 The Greatest Showman is a 2017 American musical period drama film, a heavily fictionalized depiction of the life of P.T. Barnum, a showman and entertainer who created the Barnum Bailey & Circus, and its premiere attractions, such as bearded ladies, little people, trapeze artists, and Jenny Lind. The film stars Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson, and Zendaya. RECEPTION, DAAP Library, 5:30-7 pm—light refreshments PowerPoint Presentation--"Dare to Stare: 19"-Century Circus and Sideshow Portraits" 12:45-2 pm—3800 Victory Parkway, an OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning) event, both in person and online Step right up! Enormous crowds attended circuses and sideshows to engage in bold looking. Thrilled by colorful spectacles, death-defying acts, exotic cultures, wild animals, rousing music, amusing clowns, and people with distinctive physical characteristics, audiences savored watching dynamic performances in person and sustained portrait gazing afterwards. This presentation by Theresa Leininger-Miller, Ph.D., explains the FotoFocus exhibition on view at the DAAP Library, UC, this fall. Leininger-Miller is Professor of Art History at UC. This project shifts the focus of cvs, cabinet cards, and tintypes from spectacle to empathy, examining sitters' and photograp…Display of DARE TO STARE outside the DAAP Library
Evan Torner@guyintheblackhat.bsky.social · 17h ago

You attain Full Manhood when you advocate on behalf of women and the marginalized, intervening and speaking up, and accepting zero reward or social accolades for doing so. Basic decency should be the default among men, not the exception.

Hannah Vardit@hannahvardit.bsky.social · yesterday

i worry that men think being A Good Guy is dramatically and heroically intervening on behalf of an endangered woman and then being publicly rewarded on a grand scale when actually being A Good Guy is just usually saying, “hey man that’s not funny” or “wow that’s fucked up” and there is no reward

Evan Torner@guyintheblackhat.bsky.social · 17h ago

Insurance companies are like "95 million Americans don't have life insurance! Think of the children!" Then they turn around and support fascism so that more children are endangered. They screech "Socialism!!" when a real, public-sector-provided solution to the 95 million is on the table.

Evan Torner@guyintheblackhat.bsky.social · yesterday

Alright -- I got tapped to run D&D 5E (the actual game) on Wednesday for several students. I have basically 90 minutes, so it's a convention demo of a game I haven't run since it came out in 2014. I pretty much know what I'd do with this TTRPG situation, but what would *you* do?

Erin Grievances@erinbartram.bsky.social · yesterday

Also you do not have to go to a SLAC to get a liberal arts education or major in one of the fine humanities or social sciences on offer these days. But you do have to start from a position of thinking there's something inherently worthwhile to them and powerful people don't want you to think that.

Erin Grievances@erinbartram.bsky.social · 2d ago

One reason to learn about things outside your major is so that you have something to talk about with people at parties and on dates. No amount of money will make up for you being a crushing bore. History majors learn this early but I guess it takes other people longer.

Evan Torner@guyintheblackhat.bsky.social · yesterday

We've been headed for this garbage for decades, a disaster paved by the mendacious No Child Left Behind Act, which bonded school funding to test scores in a way that nuked teacher autonomy from orbit. They've just come back with digital poison to finish the job.

Charles Logan@charleswlogan.bsky.social · yesterday

Alpha School's "software is just techwashing for [Christopher Rufo and his coalition's] dream of teacherlessness and totalitarian surveillance of students and schools. That’s what they really want to hyperscale," writes @mattseybold.bsky.social.

Evan Torner@guyintheblackhat.bsky.social · 2d ago

People keep checking in on me about how I'm doing, when I can point to the VERY CONCRETE source of my distress: the wholesale dismantling of US higher education by hostile actors, who are then enabled by compliant administrators on the ground. Int'l students. Curriculum. Financing. Accreditation.

Ida B Wells' Winchester Rifle@dytsras.bsky.social · 2d ago

Beginning in 2027: “If your degree doesn’t make enough money, you won’t be able to get a student loan. Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, music, & cosmetic certification programs will be hit the hardest.” newrepublic.com/post/213446/...

Dave Gilbert@wadjeteyegames.com · 3d ago

Nighthawks has sold TEN THOUSAND copies in less than one week! For a tiny studio like ours, this is a huge milestone. To all the supporters, backers, wishlisters, and everyone who believed in this game and us, thank you so much.

Lux and Becca from Nighthawks, with the text "10,000 copies sold."
Rüdiger Singer@rudysinger.bsky.social · 2d ago

"[A] lot of GIs in Korea (...) saw this novel , beautiful, gifted group. (...) One GI sent a letter, signed by 30 other GI fans, to an agent, with his primary goal to get the Kim Sisters on the Ed Sullivan Show. It worked" jackohman.substack.com/p/have-you-e... @romanlach.bsky.social

Have you ever heard of The Kim Sisters (and brothers?)...the first K-Pop band!

I had not, but these singers always cheer me up...and who couldn’t use that these days?

jackohman.substack.com

Robert Yang@radiatoryang.bsky.social · 2d ago

if you’ll be here for #NZGDC come roll thru!! I’ll be running an IRL #ManifestoJam and I’m even bringing a door to nail your manifestoes onto

Auckland Makes Games 🎮@aucklandmakes.games · 2d ago

We couldn't do this event without our staff, volunteers, and contributors. But we also couldn't do this event without @aggrocrabgames.bsky.social ! HUGE thank you for bankrolling us, making this event possible, and encouraging our weird :))) ➡️ events.humanitix.com/wireframe-pr...

Evan Torner@guyintheblackhat.bsky.social · 2d ago

Big Corporate Ad: "We guarantee your cybersecurity!" Me, eyes projecting a figure borne back ceaselessly into the past: "In the 1990s, the main person who guaranteed our cybersecurity had a ponytail, a DC subscription at his mom's address, and multiple BBS usernames."