"I mean this in the nicest way, but you sound old right now." -- my 19 year old to me when I suggested that the best student essays didn't use GenAI: not even in the idea-generation stage, not even as a search engine. (Tbf, the idea of using Chat*PT etc. instead of Google etc. is weird to me!)

An open letter, to readers, about Charity and Sylvia. I am very pained to feel the need to write this. #queerhistory #pride

New on the Diacritics blog: "Postcolonial Literature’s Generative Capacities: A Conversation with Rose Casey and Ryan Topper" about their recent monographs, "Aesthetic Impropriety" & "Animist Poetics." Read here: www.diacriticsjournal.com/postcolonial...

Interesting discussion between Rose Casey & Ryan Topper drawing on their recent books. I have been slowly reading through some African fiction, mostly 60s/70s, working out from SA, & look out for what researchers are saying. #AfricanLiterature

Rose Casey@rosecasey.bsky.social · last mo.

I loved talking with @ryantopper.bsky.social about our recent books. Interested in the structures and possibilities that literature builds? In literary criticism and critical theory? In African studies, postcolonial anglophone literature, psychoanalysis, or the law? We have all this and more!

I loved talking with @ryantopper.bsky.social about our recent books. Interested in the structures and possibilities that literature builds? In literary criticism and critical theory? In African studies, postcolonial anglophone literature, psychoanalysis, or the law? We have all this and more!

@diacriticsjournal.bsky.social · last mo.

New on the Diacritics blog: "Postcolonial Literature’s Generative Capacities: A Conversation with Rose Casey and Ryan Topper" about their recent monographs, "Aesthetic Impropriety" & "Animist Poetics." Read here: www.diacriticsjournal.com/postcolonial...

This! Teaching and researching are entwined and equally essential. The best college teachers research and the best researchers teach. Overworked and underresourced public schools matter and their students deserve the best education.

Asheesh Kapur Siddique@asheeshks.org · last mo.

I absolutely do not think this is true. There is no inherent tension between teaching and research - the problem is that both have been either so devalued in the humanities that it is difficult to imagine how we could support both equitably for all academic workers

During my bookstore shift yesterday, this precious little 8th grader came to me holding a book. She wanted to know if she could somehow hide the rainbow cover. She could barely get the words out & didn't buy it, but you should've seen her joy when I whispered #HappyPride & pointed to my #LGBTQ pin.

It seems to me that the US could do with a little more of this version of democracy, tbh (speaking as someone who can vote in both countries)

Peter@notalawyer.bsky.social · last mo.

one thing i respect about the UK is they’ll choose a prime minister and then almost immediately turn around and be like “actually we fucked up, this guy sucks”

It's amazing what you can do when you remember that schools have a primary responsibility to the children they teach and nurture -- not to the ed-tech industry or gen AI profit margins.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 2mo ago

But I was told it was inevitable.

"Is it any wonder, then, that these institutions would collaborate on a report whose aim is to discredit the very possibility that those disciplines that are at the forefront of the critical study of AI could produce accurate knowledge?" asheeshksi.substack.com/p/producing-...

Max Kennerly@maxkennerly.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Vanderbilt & Wash U both have massive investments in SpaceX; they provided working capital for DOGE's attacks on science, academia, and humanity as a whole. Their admins believe the fascists will do them favors and make them rich, and that's the entire explanation for the chancellors' "report."

The gratitude I feel for the chance to study with brilliant people while at Cornell is, once again, counterbalanced by the deep shame I frequently feel in response to leadership actions

Inside Higher Ed @insidehighered.com · 2mo ago

Cornell Graduate Banned After President Hit Him With Car https://bit.ly/4viG6Cj

Here are the photos of Hew Locke's Hinterland! And a pile of my books which features this wonderful work of art. You can see the exhibition, Passages, at OSU's W*xner Center until 5/24.

Rose Casey@rosecasey.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I saw my book's cover art in person for the first time! And WOW. Hinterland by Hew Locke is stunning. It's on display at the Wex/OSU until May 24. If you want more to read about Locke and postcolonial aesthetics, please read my book: fordhampress.com/aesthetic-im... @fordhampress.bsky.social

I saw my book's cover art in person for the first time! And WOW. Hinterland by Hew Locke is stunning. It's on display at the Wex/OSU until May 24. If you want more to read about Locke and postcolonial aesthetics, please read my book: fordhampress.com/aesthetic-im... @fordhampress.bsky.social

Aesthetic Impropriety - Rose Casey

Shows how legal and literary innovations together reshape property law in the postcolonial world.

fordhampress.com

I doubt I know more about reconstruction than Trevon. What I do know is that Reconstruction wasn’t some shadowy, back room event. It was then as it is now — plain as day, obvious to all, boastful and unrepentant.

Trevon Logan@trevondlogan.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I wish I didn’t know as much about the end of Reconstruction as I do. If you understood what is being unleashed now, how it will touch every aspect of our civic life, and how difficult it will be to undo it, you wouldn’t be able to think about anything else.

“Massive numbers of students are going to emerge from university with degrees, & into the workforce, who are essentially illiterate," [Jollimore] said. "Both in the literal sense & in the sense of being historically illiterate & having no knowledge of their own culture, much less anyone else’s.”

Nathan K. Hensley@nathankhensley.bsky.social · 3mo ago

i needed to take a breather after reading this profoundly bleak and essentially nihilistic (accurate) report it's paywalled but dm me if you need a PDF and i can email it to you

It’s not about declining humanities majors or declining humanities enrollments (which are respectively overblown and not a thing). It’s about structural disinvestment.

Claude Willan@claudewillan.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Our student numbers are up, 30%; we now have about 750 majors. Over the past 12 months, we lost 7 FTE and will lose another 3 in another 12 months, assuming no-one else passes or retires or leaves (although this last is not something people do from your institution).

Remember when academic Tw*tter was a thing and you could make silly jokes and wonderful puns, vaguepost about crappy people doing crappy things, share book or teaching ideas or reading recs, cheer on people you knew through the internet that then became IRL friends? I miss those days!

Looking up Blind alleys, going down rabbit holes, experiencing archive fever … all the figures for research tell you that the direct route is the wrong route. I once planned a book about this called “False Starts” to show how inefficiency, irrelevance, & indirection are (lost) keys to new thinking

Dr ShinyGoth@ghostingdani.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Gonna die on this hill but efficiency is the opposite of education. Learning is not efficient.

It's not getting much coverage in the U.S. but the news from the UK elections is in and it is DIRE. The entire country has shifted to the far right. Entrenched racism is being legitimized under Reform. I keep thinking: Brexit was a bellwether for Trump 1.0. And: this is so depressing.

Grateful to reporter Matt Hartman for telling this story about changes in leadership at NEH. The firing of 22 out of 26 board members, including all members appointed by past presidents, is nothing short of a coup at an agency where the board reviews and votes on every single grant application.

The Assembly@theassemblync.bsky.social · 3mo ago

How Two Duke Alumni Helped Conservatives Take Over the NEH The Trump administration fired most of the National Endowment for the Humanities’ advisory board last year. Two Duke-trained political theorists are key figures now running the agency.

Posting again for the daytime crowd! I'm particularly looking for readings on best grad advising practices, but comments on your personal or program recs are also welcome! Thanks!

Rose Casey@rosecasey.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Best practice for grad advising? Best sources or resources? I'm not new to advising (I saw several PhD advisees graduate before I even had tenure) but am wanting to spruce up my sense of best practice & norms. How often do you meet? Meet their needs while recognizing your own (eg workload!) etc.!

Best practice for grad advising? Best sources or resources? I'm not new to advising (I saw several PhD advisees graduate before I even had tenure) but am wanting to spruce up my sense of best practice & norms. How often do you meet? Meet their needs while recognizing your own (eg workload!) etc.!

When it gets to the end of the semester, and I have no energy, any more, to exert substantial emotional labor toward easing other people's feelings, and am instead merely the direct but polite and considerate person I actually am, I realize: What BS to feel compelled, always, to perform gentleness.

TEACHING TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY LITERATURE: ESSAYS FROM THE CLASSROOM Officially under contract and coming in 2028! It's a monster volume: 33 teacher-scholars from around the world writing provocative, shortform essays in the service of pedagogy

"I've found that a lot of AI is kind of slide-showy" My 14 year old nails it.

No luck so far with my quest to set up my sister with fellow vegan nature-loving northerner Jack from @theguardian.com's First Dates. Not to be all Austen but I'm *this close* to emailing the Guardian with her contact details and a note to send to Jack. He does actually sound perfect for her!

Rose Casey@rosecasey.bsky.social · 4mo ago

The couple in this week's Guardian Blind Dates didn't work out but Jack sounds *perfect* for my sister. She's a vegan geography teacher who lives just outside Manchester, spends a lot of time outdoors, & is basically his age. Can the internet do its thing?! www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

The couple in this week's Guardian Blind Dates didn't work out but Jack sounds *perfect* for my sister. She's a vegan geography teacher who lives just outside Manchester, spends a lot of time outdoors, & is basically his age. Can the internet do its thing?! www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Blind date: ‘She claimed she was usually shy. I wouldn’t have guessed’

Jack, 31, a nature consultant, meets Heather, 23, who works in marketing for a homelessness charity

theguardian.com

Our PhD student Kennedy Orwa, who studies applications of AI to health care, was hastily deported today to Kenya along with his 13-year-old son without opportunity to speak to legal counsel. King 5 reports that he held a valid visa that was rescinded without explanation.

UW graduate student deported through SEA as protesters demand answers

A union representing University of Washington graduate student workers says Kennedy Orwa’s student visa was rescinded without explanation.

king5.com

Ngl, this is basically how I teach. (And, bc the context is necessary on this occasion, it's also basically why I've won multiple teaching awards and most of my students massively exceed their expectations of what they can do, write, think, and know.)

Josh Shepperd@joshshepperd.bsky.social · 4mo ago

What if we just went back to reading a bunch of books and thinking about them together, and that was the class? With syllabi no longer than three pages.

I cannot WAIT for my copy of @johannawinant.bsky.social's first monograph to arrive! I've just ordered LYRIC LOGIC from Columbia UP with the code CUP20. This review from Oren Izenberg tells you what you need to know. We all need pleasure, thought, & both buoyancy and precision, right now & always:

Johanna Winant@johannawinant.bsky.social · 4mo ago

LYRIC LOGIC is out in the world now!