I desperately want to know which building this is, and I'm also amazed that it isn't the anthropology building (which, being one of the oldest buildings on campus, consistently has bizarre problems).

The Signs & Society "Chronotopes of Gender" special issue that @cat-tebaldi.bsky.social and I edited is finally in print! Check out all the fantastic articles: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I don’t know if anyone else notices or cares, but when I see a presentation in which the speaker uses obviously generated-AI images to illustrate their slides, it makes me immediately less confident in whatever other content they’re presenting.

In 9th grade, I got in trouble in gym class. We were doing a unit on the high jump, so I was told to write a two-page essay about the high jump. As someone who resented being assigned busywork, I went somewhat off the rails. Here are some excerpts from my paper. First, I established a premise.

In New Orleans for AAAs! Looking forward to seeing how many different iterations of shrimp I can eat in the next three days. Also participating in this fantastic scholarly community etc etc

since chatgpt has coached another young person in a mental health crisis to their death, I am yet again tapping the sign

This seems like a SLIGHT overreaction to some British children saying the word "candy"

I'm discussing the enregisterment of typefaces in class today, and usually I only talk about people's reactions to Comic Sans, but thanks to some fortuitous timing I have a new example.

My new article "The Caveman in the Mirror: Masculinity and Paleofantasy" is now available via early access from Signs and Society! It's part of a special issue, "Chronotopes of Gender," that I coedited with @cat-tebaldi.bsky.social. Full issue will be out in December! doi.org/10.1017/sas....

Urbana, IL

Chants of Sennaar is a very cool linguistics-y game, but with one thing that annoyed my semi-linguist self: one of the languages' syntax initially appears to be verb-first (VS), but then every other sentence is OSV, so I guess it's just... Yoda syntax?

Academic conference pro tip: if you're going to fully take a nap for an entire panel — like, head tipped back, feet up on the seat in front of you — maybe don't sit in the third row.

I can't actually justify including this in the book chapter I am currently writing, so I'll just put it here instead.

Something my students and I realized today, discussing Spitulnik's Zambian radio catchphrase article: a lot of the famous media phrases that have been taken up in American discourse ("Houston, we have a problem"; "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore") are examples of dramatic understatement.

My special issue on narrative and scale, coedited with @mkoven66.bsky.social and @sabyperri.bsky.social, is officially out! journals.sagepub.com/toc/DIS/curr...

This should terrify every person in this country. The use of machine learning systems to approximate an individuals views on war and then, if they are here lawfully on a visa, tag them for deportation is about as sci-fi dystopian as it gets. www.axios.com/2025/03/06/s...

Pioneering a new kind of corpus research (crossword puzzle clues) for this slide in my lecture on Mock Spanish. Feel free to use in your own lectures!

I made a short list of books that most challenge myths about about gender and sex for @shepherdbooks.bsky.social. Check it out: shepherd.com/best-books/c...

I suppose I should post something so my profile isn't just blank. Here's a link to my most recent publication, "Constructing cancel culture: Strategic scaling in stories of 'cancellation'" doi.org/10.1177/1461...