i don't like to police genre, but it's not dark academia unless somebody gets squished in one of these bad boys

If you teach music history responsibly, inevitably someone will inform you that you are doing it wrong by failing to focus on "the music itself", meaning "the notes on the page". The notes, being representative of specific pitches, are quantifiable in ways that history and politics simply are not.

Glenn Mackin@glennmackin.bsky.social · yesterday

Even without the AI crap, there is a strong tendency to substitute quantification for thinking, and exchanges of information for communication. And yes, it produces its own special form of stupidity

The tone of some of this relentless Emily Wilson discourse has to be nightmare fuel for anyone even thinking about doing public scholarship

will the historian who puts the last fact in order please turn out the lights

Aparna Nair@disabilitystor1.bsky.social · yesterday

"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.

I am once again recommending that if you, a professor, proudly announce that you are using a commercial LLM to decide which historical facts are important and/or interesting, you should have your tenure revoked.

If history were just facts, we’d all agree on it. We don’t. That’s what history is. The disagreement and interpretation

Aparna Nair@disabilitystor1.bsky.social · yesterday

"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.

This isn't just an example of bad faith scholarship conducted with a deep misunderstanding of what the field of history actually is. It's also lazy as shit.

Aparna Nair@disabilitystor1.bsky.social · yesterday

"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.

I doubt anyone would criticize research publications in medicine or engineering as ‘gatekeepy’ or ‘for elites’ - ie inscrutable to laypeople. They should be inscrutable to laypeople. They are inscrutable to me! But humanities scholarship does not NEED to be legible to laypeople.

Saw a post on another platform critiquing scholarly publishing for being ‘gatekeepy’ and ‘for elites’ and I hate to break it to you but specialized peer reviewed research for highly-trained experts is…quality assured material for a narrow professional audience

This afternoon I have the privilege of sitting in on a former graduate student’s doctoral dissertation defense. I wrote her many glowing recommendation letters, all highly deserved. Back then, I thought the payoff was seeing her get into her dream doctoral program. I was wrong: this is even better.

My modest wish for myself is to once again sit in a room with other people who want to learn things and talk about the books and essays we read this week. My big expensive brain does not require an LLM to do that; it requires an employment contract.

The very people who accuse others of "staying silent" are SILENT THEMSELVES ON 1000 issues a day which is NORMAL because you are ONE PERSON & simply cannot have takes on every single thing.

"Enrollment data posted on archives of Illinois Tech’s website show a loss of approximately 1,200 international graduate students between the fall of 2024 and 2025 — a significant decline for a school that enrolled 7,500 students overall last year."

Anna Kornbluh@annakornbluh.bsky.social · 4d ago

today in demolishing higher ed is economic sabotage, bonus racism 160 workers fired because regime hates international students www.wbez.org/education/20...

One effective way to resist late-stage capitalism is to develop strongly-held values and act accordingly.

I interviewed for a different publisher with offices in the same building. Then I worked in one of the shops on the ground floor. It was an interesting place to work, especially if you got to see inside the storerooms upstairs, which I did.

John Scalzi@scalzi.com · 4d ago

My publisher was in this building for many years and while it was absolutely an impractical building, I loved visiting and am sad that now the only people who will get to see the view from it are a bunch of rich folks www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

I am also curious with supplemental Qs 1) do you have children or caretaking roles 2) how often can you afford/do you buy takeout or prepared food 3) how often do you exercise 4) how often do you see friends/family you don’t live with

Kenneth F. Duggan 🇨🇦@kfduggan.bsky.social · 4d ago

Academics who write during term (i.e. while teaching): 1. How many classes do you teach per term? 2. How often do you write (e.g. once/wk, when you can, etc.)? 3. When do you write (e.g. weekend, morning, at night, etc.)? 4. What's the biggest barrier(s) to you writing? 5. Do you have any tips?

Billy Corgan is aiming for that Gen Alpha nostalgia & the good will that Olivia Rodrigo is bringing to SO many artists (including Corgan’s pal, Robert Smith) but unfortunately this will all be ruined by Billy Corgan opening his mouth.

Is there some way I can communicate to drivers in Los Angeles that instead of obstructing traffic, you can simply… go around the block? I know the blocks here are big, but good news: you are in a car. You’ll be fine.

I like this notetaking example. it is a good case of how gender works. Notetaking has never been about producing a transcript. It is a bureaucratic skill in the 20th c. organixarion because it is SENSEMAKING. Those women socialized to take notes? They have been doing men’s metacognition for them

Jennifer Romig @jennifermromig.bsky.social · 4d ago

Notetaking in meetings is tiny case in point - used to be some predictable social assumptions who would do it; now anyone can offer to do ”notetaking” by turning on the AI listener. Further interesting scenario is human recollection / notes (taken by habit by a person) conflict with AI summary

Madonna's "Vogue"? In a movie about the fashion industry? Groundbreaking.

Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly Judging Look

Alt: Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly sneering

static.klipy.com

WOR$T GIRL IN ACADEMIA@medievaliste.bsky.social · 5d ago

btw the score for this movie sucks

can we sometimes be asking "what qualifies this guy to speak on this subject?" or has that ship sailed

again, the danger from AI is not that it will attain sentience and destroy us. the danger is that it's a mindless flattery machine and being mindlessly flattered literally drives people insane.

sorry to the Devil Wears Prada 2 but there is really nothing I feel less nostalgic about than looking for a job in publishing in New York

As a former Writing Center tutor and director: Writing Centers are a critical resource for connecting students to the dialogic nature of academic writing and teaching them that they have ideas worth expressing.

Greg Pak@gregpak.net · 5d ago

Disgraceful actions by @harvard.edu - destroying their writing program at a time when it's needed more than ever as "A.i." undermines everything. Deepest shame on this institution and all the best to @janerosenzweig.bsky.social. www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

It’s fine to be angry when people write things you find offensive or just disagree with, but you do actually need to read the whole thing if you’re going to respond intelligently. You’re not genAI; you don’t need to rely on a someone else’s summary or selective screenshot to form your opinion.

Worth noting that they are doing this instead of greenlighting more films like the wildly successful Sinners. It’s not good business: it’s spite

Kat Tenbarge@kattenbarge.bsky.social · last wk.

There’s an even more sinister angle to Johnny Depp’s ongoing “comeback” tour as the new Scrooge—it’s a Paramount production and part of a slate of Ellison-backed conservative cultural takeover attempts. It’s angled around MeToo rejection and the manosphere. spitfirenews.com/p/johnny-dep...

I am begging people to read entire articles, even if they are 4k words long

The thought of coming back to a book—and finding a sliver of myself from years ago that I would have otherwise lost forever—floods me with good feelings. Treating a book like a sterile, one-way medium is disheartening.

Apparently being fused with the religious studies department into a single “philosophy and religion” major, which is the sort of thing that might vaguely sound like it makes sense if you’ve never studied either subject.

Samantha Brennan@samanthabrennan.bsky.social · 2w ago

"Wyoming will become the first state in the US where you cannot receive a B.A. in Philosophy." dailynous.com/2026/07/23/u...