Dr Lauren Cullen
@laurenicullen.bsky.social
writes about 19th/20th literature and culture, animals, and the environment. SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at UBC 📍Vancouver / London / Oxford
I guess I am comfortable saying that in cases where people you formerly respected, or presumed you did, are now actively choosing to sunset their own minds & surrender them to machines invented by incels and billionaires, then yes there should be a stigma for that. This is what society is for
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 7d ago“There is also a moral and political judgment that is coming along with AI usage…Especially in creative industries where the stigma is the strongest.”
The most dangerous thing about AI is not that the machines might one day think. It is that we are being trained, by men with enormous financial gains riding on our acquiescence, to stop thinking for ourselves.
Would you like to join the BAVS committee? We have 9 voluntary positions open! To find out more please visit our website: bavs.ac.uk/committee-va... Applications are due by 3rd August 2026.
Join the Committee – BAVS
bavs.ac.uk
I had a wonderful time sharing my work yesterday! Huge thanks to all attendees for such thoughtful and engaging questions 🐾
GOTHICA 🦇@gothicauob.bsky.social · 2mo agoIf the sunshine has just been too much lately, and you are in desperate need to slink away into the shadows, then look no further! Join us TOMORROW 🦇⬇️ 🐺Animal Gothic 🗣️ Dr Lauren Cullen 📅28th May 🕕6pm BST DM to join
Still a few days left to send in an abstract for what promises to be another brilliant BAVS conference! 👩💻
BAVS@bavs-uk.bsky.social · 8mo agoCheck out the BAVS 2026 conference website: www.ljmu.ac.uk/bavs2026 CfP deadline extended until 12th December 2025!
AI is a climate issue. AI is a climate crisis.
Ketan Joshi@ketanjoshi.co · 8mo agoA few important points here - Generative AI supercharged data centre growth: lobbyist and substacker lines pretending like this is just streaming are false - Even when you consider much of the projected growth is speculative, the *likely* projects are still MASSIVE media.licdn.com/dms/document...
Check out the BAVS 2026 conference website: www.ljmu.ac.uk/bavs2026 CfP deadline extended until 12th December 2025!
British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS) conference
The Centre for Modern and Contemporary History, with the Centre for Port and Maritime History, are delighted to welcome BAVS delegates to Liverpool in 2026.
ljmu.ac.uk
“I don’t doubt that it is a great privilege to be a human being. But may it not be the happier destiny to be an animal or a plant?” — Wilkie Collins (1875)
We’d love to see you! 🙂↔️
Dr Emily Vincent@dremilyvincent.bsky.social · 9mo agoReminder that the next @bavs-uk.bsky.social ECR Tea Time will take place tomorrow at 5pm - 6pm on Zoom! DM me or @laurenicullen.bsky.social for the Zoom link and join us for an informal chat about all things early career and nineteenth century 🫖 ☕️
Calling @bavs-uk.bsky.social ECRs! Our next BAVS Tea Time will take place tomorrow (Weds 22nd) at 5pm-6pm (UK) on Zoom - join for all or part of an informal catch up about all things Victorian and ECR. DM me for link! We will also welcome our new BAVS ECR Rep @laurenicullen.bsky.social 🎉🫖☕️
a woman in a lace top is drinking from a cup
ALT: a woman in a lace top is drinking from a cup
media.tenor.com
The official CFP is a few days off, but I can't wait that long to announce that #BAVS2026 will be held in Liverpool, 27-29 July. We hope that some of the @rs4vp.org crowd will be able to make the trip over from #RSVP2026 and join @bavs-uk.bsky.social for more Victorian stuff. Details to follow.
In about three years the entire university pivot to AI curricula and schools and programs is going to be so deeply embarrassing. We will all pretend it never happened and I will be standing there, looking at people with a mirror in my eyes. This is all so embarrassing.
OpenAI *really* isn't hiding its intention to power the AI boom with fossil fuels. New from me @desmog.com www.desmog.com/2025/10/13/o...
OpenAI’s New Energy Chief Is a Trump Administration Natural Gas Evangelist
The ChatGPT creator hired John McCarrick, a gas-loving former Trump energy official, to guide how the company will source huge quantities of power for its colossal supercomputers.
desmog.com
Want to attend NAVSA 2025: Aftermaths but can't make it to DC? Want MORE brilliant Victorianist scholarship than you can get at the in-person event? The NAVSA 2025 DIGITAL PRESESSION is free and open to all —registration required for security (thread of papers below)
NAVSA 2025@navsa2025.bsky.social · 10mo ago#NAVSA2025 is running special digital panels on Fri, Nov 7 and Sat Nov 8! Registration is FREE but required: tinyurl.com/hy2zhe2y
This point is well made. During the prospectus and methods portion of my dissertation, what I realized was that the committee was not there to give you lots of known things but rather to gently steer you away from trying to make entirely unknowable claims. Expertise is understanding limits.
Evan Torner@guyintheblackhat.bsky.social · 11mo agoPodcasts and "deep dive" media will try to convince you that you *now* know things, thanks to them. A PhD, especially one with archival, observational, or observational components, will definitely convince you that you know next to nothing, thanks to the available resources & one's predecessors.
I will say this: if you use the toys of rent-seeking billionaires to do your writing for you, I promise I will never care about a single thing you write or think, ever
“Massive numbers of students are going to emerge from university with degrees, and into the workforce, who are essentially illiterate…Both in the literal sense and in the sense of being historically illiterate and having no knowledge of their own culture, much less anyone else’s.”
Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College
ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project.
nymag.com
Today is the centenary of the publication of The Great Gatsby! Here's the piece I wrote about the novel: theconversation.com/after-100-ye...
After 100 years, The Great Gatsby still reminds us of the ability of literature to transform everyday life
Gatsby has become more than just a novel, but instead an exploration of what literature can mean.
theconversation.com
Now that I’m (mostly) settled into my new West Coast life, I’m thrilled to write that I’m a postdoctoral research fellow at gorgeous #UBC. It’s wonderful to be back in Canada — and there’s no better place for me to sink my teeth into a new project centring “wild” places in 19thC literature.🏔️🐳
