A typo in my chapter today created a new, amazing alternate universe. Members of Bluesky, I give you Edwin Abbott’s _Flanland_ (1884).

I don’t even drink soju but this frog is always cute, especially when it adopts the odalisque pose.

I strongly recommend the strawberry spoon cake recipe on the NYT cooking site. So good with vanilla ice cream.

This arrived in the mail today. I’m excited. @colsonwhitehead.com really knows how to write an opening paragraph!

The table of contents for the Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Weird is now available on the Cambridge site:

The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Weird | Cambridge University Press & Assessment

cambridge.org

I’m glad that the @strictscrutiny.bsky.social podcast covered the the fact that the Judiciary Committee democrats were not tough enough in their questioning of Todd Blanche about Epstein.

So cool to watch Network (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1976) for the first time and to discover that the @criterion.bsky.social essay was written by @jamellebouie.net! Amazing movie, and this scene, which Bouie connects to the neoliberal order, was mesmerizing.

Just spent a couple minutes debating whether I should add an aside to my chapter intro about Haggard and Trollope almost accidentally sharing a bedroom in Pretoria in 1879.

Another historical inaccuracy from Nolan—IMAX had not yet been invented in the Mycenaean period, so this is not the aspect ratio that people saw in! Smh

Excellent analysis from @adamserwer.bsky.social. The Neo-Korematsu Doctrine is the perfect term for how the court ignores racial animus.

The Atlantic@theatlantic.com · 3w ago

Across multiple cases, the Roberts Court has demonstrated its determination to “ignore, rationalize, or misrepresent the explicit animus of government officials” toward targeted groups, Adam Serwer argues:

Haircut / summer writing proof of life

The unconscious is structured like a language

JoeMyGod@joemygod.bsky.social · 3w ago

Despite the headline, I read this article and will also continue to teach literature.

The Atlantic@theatlantic.com · 4w ago

The advent of reading transformed society, and its decline will bring about changes of the same magnitude, @rosehorowitch.bsky.social writes. Can America—and civilization—survive the postliterate era?

She didn’t have much that was positive to say about her 20-minute conversation with Mitch McConnell.

I’m sharing with you the bonkers story I read while eating lunch. The source of the demonic activity—a bookstore run by a lesbian.

The Atlantic@theatlantic.com · 4w ago

Mike and Andrea Brewer believed that they had a mandate from God to rid their town of demonic activity—and that the regional stronghold for this evil was the bookstore across the street, Stephanie McCrummen reports:

Who would have imagined that the famous priestess of Isis, Ayesha, returned in a new incarnation to open a salon on the Big Island? Truly she who has lived so long now doth do the hair. Can she do highlights by blasting?

Now that pride month has ended and we returned from Hawaii, this is who I am.

end of pride month

Farewell, Pride Month! This was me at the start of June, with a sunburnt nose.

On this date 173 years ago, Tim Burton’s BATMAN was released

The silly little ritual of Supreme Court opinion days is a perfect illustration of the justices’ self-absorption. “We’re gonna decide cases but it’s a SURPRISE which ones, so just keep refreshing this browser tab to find out who still has civil rights!” Profoundly stupid institution. I loathe it.

Vandalizing the Capitol: “get these people a payout!” “Vandalizing” the reflecting pool: “arrest these traitors!”

In honor of pride month, I tried a new setting on my coffee grinder and made ultra-smooth cold brew. For about five minutes in the early afternoon, I felt infinite.

I didn’t know Bari Weiss held salons. I kind of wonder if all salons are awful just because they designate themselves as such? Still, I’d attend the Verdurins’ salon before I’d go to a Free Press one.

everyone, I have produced a report on how to remedy the decline of scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. here it is: Executive Summary: Fund the Humanities and Social Sciences. Body: Fund the Humanities and Social Sciences a hell of a lot more. Please cite this as the Carroll report.

In a sane world, this would mean the loss of accreditation for Auburn, because real universities don't have their curricula decided by politicians.

Auburn Board Takes Curricular Control, Dissolves Senate

The policies mirror the directives laid out in HB 580, which doesn’t take effect until October and doesn’t apply to the institution.

insidehighered.com

Awful news about Auburn. The Board’s notion that faculty merely “deliver” the curriculum and that the board’s actions don’t conflict with accreditation are laughable.

Don Moynihan@donmoyn.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The commanding heights of universities are not liberal spaces

Widow’s Bay screening and Q&A with showrunner Katie Dippold, star Matthew Rhys, and director/producer Hiro Murai. Lots of fun.

I just sent out an email to my fall graduate seminar about textbooks...first telling them to "opt out" of our terrible campus textbook system and then letting them know about _Middlemarch_ and _Dorian Gray_. REALISM and its DISCONTENTS is happening, folks.

I appreciate the work of @heavyredaction.bsky.social, who is mentioned in the article! There is no justification for this level of spending on AI at a time of austerity and department closures. A University System Went All In on A.I. Now It’s Tearing Itself Apart. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/m...

A University System Went All In on A.I. Now It’s Tearing Itself Apart.

nytimes.com