ok folks, settle an argument. is this media? www.smolotov.com/products/smo...

Stable Genius

The most presidential bags ever made! These bags are thick and leak-proof, ensuring sanitary handling, and are packaged 60/box on 4 15-count rolls. They're large enough to fully cover your hand and tu...

smolotov.com

Please stop saying “lockdowns.” There were never true lockdowns in the US, and it fuels far right narratives to repeat this inaccurate statement. You can say closures, you can say restrictions, or better, you can say public health measures which saved many lives.

Dr. Lucky Tran@luckytran.com · 6d ago

People still complain about “lockdowns” but we had none in the US. We had stay-at-home orders, where although businesses were closed, you could still go outside whenever you wanted. Other countries had far stricter rules, and yet have been much more accepting of them as they saved many more lives.

Only a teensy tiny fraction of books are truly rare, unique, or scarce. But the idea that people destroy the 1,921st copy of a book no one is interested in always freaks people out. They are appalled that libraries weed books, too.

Lady Yapper (KJ Colt)@moistenedtart.bsky.social · last wk.

futurism.com/artificial-i... Excuse me while I go cry

Study Finds Most Americans Can't Find Where They Are Being Deported On Map

hey #fanstudies folks, come work with me at @journal.transformativeworks.org! journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/tw...

just time to once again tell my university this year that we need to develop some kind of process to deal with ginned-up attacks on faculty beyond duck and cover. maybe the fourth time will be the charm.

@carmenlynn.bsky.social · 5d ago

The Koch Nazis are back “A shadowy network of conservative activist groups, backed by Koch-linked dark money, is deploying hidden cameras and mass public-records requests to hunt down and destroy the careers of college professors and administrators — and it's working.”

there are a lot of philosophical concepts that get egregiously misused out of the seminar room (and in the seminar room, to be fair). but in terms of sheer pernicious misuse "social construct" has gotta be top 5 somewhere and it's not number 5

Scott Bryan@scottygb.bsky.social · last wk.

Channel 4 has announced documentary “The Great ADHD Myth?” It “seeks to determine whether ADHD is a genuine neurodevelopmental disorder, or a social construct.”

finally somebody said it. there are lots of things to be mad at but this is totally not one of them.

Liz Fong-Jones (方禮真)@lizthegrey.com · 7d ago

literally these are books that would be pulped if not bought for 10 cents on the dollar. do rare books sometimes make it into there? yeah, if someone is careless, but that's *upstream* of what happens on sale, not *downstream*. you fundamentally are rescuing something from the fucking pulper.

T&T faculty member @melstanfill.bsky.social recently published "The Platformization of Fandom and its Discontents: Understanding Platform Harms Through the Archive of Our Own." Take a look! ijoc.org/index.php/ij...

This is just to say I have OCRed the text thet was in tne arch:ve and whicb yov were prabaldy seamhing for "breahtast" Fargme ms fheg mem debo:w5 sb ?mccf mmb 5c oc1b

I think intellectual property is the dark mirror of immigration law, in that people’s intuitive sense of what existing IP law allows is far more restrictive than the reality while their intuitive sense of what existing immigration law allows is far more permissive than the reality

i just used "on a logarithmic scale" in this chapter who even am i.

i was surprised when i had TWO repeats between tenure and full, but the repetition came from the list of names that originated with the department, not my list. my guess is it's more common when you're a little sideways disciplinarily and your colleagues do not know many names.

Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · last wk.

I was asked to write an evaluation for a promotion to full professor for a candidate I had previously written an evaluation for tenure and promotion to associate professor (at the very same institution). I assumed there were policies against that kind of double dipping everywhere? Am I wrong?

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

shorter Nolan's The Odyssey:

Just wrapped up the last live workshop of the NEH AI+DH learning community workshop series @melstanfill.bsky.social and I have been running this summer. The suggested readings, exercises, and recaps of the live workshops are available here: anastasiasalter.net/NEH_AI_DH/

Dang they really got a category for everything

I Sexually Identify As An Attack Helicopter, Isabel Fall (2020)

andré carrington@andrecarrington.bsky.social · 3w ago

"Gender-affirming hormone therapy is when the government gives service members testosterone to help them align their bodies with their gender identity. This T is being administered to align their bodies with the Pentagon’s identity."

Meta Glasses are like, a Cybertruck for your face.

is this that forcing people into gender-affirming care i keep hearing about?

Matthew Gault@mjgault.bsky.social · 3w ago

Hegseth announced they're gonna start screening for T and administering testosterone treatment for warriors found wanting

If you're a graduate student member of SCMS and a member of the Fan and Audience Studies SIG, consider submitting to this contest for possible publication in a future issue of TWC!

SCMS Fan and Audience Studies SIG @scmsfaas.bsky.social · 3w ago

📣 Announcing this year's FaAS SIG graduate essay contest! Submit your essays related to fan and audience studies, up to 7,500 words, by Aug. 31 for possible publication in @journal.transformativeworks.org. For more details and to submit: tinyurl.com/faasgradessa...

well there goes the "if your Naomi is Klein, you're doing fine; if your Naomi is Wolf, oof" mnemonic . . .

Karl Bode@karlbode.com · 3w ago

I have to assume Substack is throwing some fat stacks of cash at prominent authors to launch on the platform in 2026, in exchange for ignoring the fact the company openly embrace nazis and white supremacists for engagement

as i have been saying: it's a moral suasion problem. we can try to convince them to care enough to do the work. (some will already care. some never will because that's how the pros and cons add up in their life.) but that's all we can do.

Kieran Healy@kjhealy.co · 4w ago

If students are simply uninterested in the core bargain of a class like this, it’s hard to know what to do. You teach the material because you think it’s important they know it; they don’t give a shit, but want the credential; and the university wants their money. Your main option is “pretend”.

why do i have to undergo a bot check to visit constitution.congress.gov? it is very extremely in the public domain, who cares if it gets scraped?

Register by July 10 to join us for our 2026 conference, entirely online, free with active membership. July 15-18, hosted by U Central Florida

I'll accept this as a transformative use of the day

In these difficult times, it is incumbent upon us to plan for our stakeholders.

Together, we will support stakeholders to diversify our leadership team with more Assistant Vice Provosts.

Grant: "Though the government has plenty of ways to promote its own viewpoint, puppeteering every university professor in the state is not one of them."

Britt Grant: "Because the government pays the professors' salaries, Florida says, their speech is the State's speech. Emphatically no."