It’s Pączki Day!

*Cathy voice*: I've been a waif for twenty years!

FAKE FAN. EXPOSE HIM

Anna is (wrong about Darcy but) right about this. We love creative adaptations that show they get the original. That's not what this is.

I don't demand polish but woe be unto you if your talk runs long.

“these are crystal funko pops” true “I would never pay these obscene prices” good call they’re ridiculous “they were so preoccupied with whether they could, they never stopped to think if they should” correct “I would never own one of these if someone gave it to me” don’t lie

18TH CENTURY BRITISH HISTORY PHD LIGHTNING TALKS CFP Are you at the start of your PhD? Want to tell an eager and engaged audience about it in 5 mins? We want to hear the best PGR research about 18th Britain at our #LightningTalks event 29 April 2026. Please see the poster for further information!

Yet you still won’t be able to comment on footnotes

Attention ABO readers! Issue 15.2 (2025) dropped earlier this month. Content screenshots below with individual article abstracts to follow. Thanks for reading! digitalcommons.usf.edu/abo/ #18thCentury #C18 #C18th #18thC #scholarship #pedagogy #bookreviews #digitalhumanities

The other night on Jeopardy, two players were tied going into final. The woman in third made a small wager and her answer was, "I hope they both bet everything." They both did, all three got it wrong, and she won. As if that wasn't already hilarious enough, turns out it was all a master plan!

To be clear: as far as I know I am the first researcher to question Bonny and Read's pregnancies. My work is published in an open-source academic article. Helen Rodriguez, whom I cite, located Read's burial records. This isn't fair use or common knowledge. digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcont...

@ladytyler.bsky.social Check out the final paragraph. This sure looks like it's using our research without credit. Ain't that fun? allthatsinteresting.com/mary-read

Worth a listen. JVDB could bring the funny. Do YOU send a lot of mass emails?

I wrote about how personal crisis veers into the absurd when your travel steamer gets recalled: lacachette.substack.com/p/indignity-...

Somehow missed that my article "Marxism, Cultural Studies, and the Rise of Indigenous Studies" is the PMLA paper of the month, available for free access until February 24th! cup.org/465OPxz

“I’ve reviewed over 50 sticky toffee puddings” is an incredibly powerful way to begin a video

Have a company wide email you need to send? Want to congratulate a coworker? Let people know about free pizza in the lunch room? I am begging you… PLEASE USE BCC.

The only Wuthering Heights adaptation I need www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk-4...

Friends, can I ask you to spread the word that we have a THREE-YEAR postdoc in American history at Cambridge up for grabs - ANY field, but applications are due March 1 so don't delay - apply, apply, apply! networks.h-net.org/jobs/69790/u...

😂😂😂 (Full disclosure: I totally assign my Defoe edition, and I explain why it is good, and I offer to buy the class a large bag of Skittles or M&Ms with all the royalty money I'm making.)

Tom Keymer on the importance of the essay periodical, hurrah! www.the-tls.com/literature/p...

You know what's better than science-themed March Mammal Madness Valentines of #2026MMM Combatants!?! Science-themed March Mammal Madness Valentines of combatants that carry ear-worms. They're INFECTIOUS! Download in color or greyscale at the LibGuide libguides.asu.edu/MarchMammalM...

THE HATERS SAID THE PATRIOTS COULDN'T DO IT. AND THEY WERE CORRECT. HONESTLY GREAT CALL FROM THE HATERS

TALK TO ME, TELL ME THE NEWS YOU WEAR ME OUT LIKE A PAIR OF SHOES

How I screamed for Ricky Martin

peak male performance

#AGoodGame is back on Super Bowl Sunday as usual! (cc: @emmasandoe.bsky.social)

"Was Wuthering Heights the Heated Rivalry of the Victorian Era?" Fuuuuck you And no, no it was not Ppl thought it was horrifying and brutal Rossetti: "The action is laid in hell, – only it seems places and people have English names there" And he LIKED it

production of The Muppet Show should not be dependent on petty vulgarities like “ratings” or “revenue.” it should be preserved as a vital function of american culture. it should have a taxpayer-funded budget rivaling the CIA

Really? Not only do we skip Mongolia in the commercial break, you rub it in to tell me how awesome their outfits were and don't show me? WTF, NBC? Literally only watching this to peep cool central/Steppe Asian countries. Come on.

Friends! We are looking for a visiting assistant professor with expertise in 17th century literature. Help me spread the word? It’s limited term, but I can promise wonderful students and lovely colleagues for a very nice bit of teaching experience… wesleyan.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/careers/job/...

The CIA just stopped publishing their World Factbook and took every page, including the archived copies of previous versions! This sucks. It was public domain, so I recovered the 2020 edition (the last one published as a zip file) and shared it to GitHub simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/5/t...

This pup found a stick shaped like an old timey pipe earlier today and has already solved three mysteries. 13/10

“Stay angry, little Meg,” Mrs Whatsit whispered. “You will need all your anger now.” "Okay I get that," Meg whispered back, "but I've been angry for over a decade straight and my arteries are basically solid carbon fiber at this point. Do I ever get a freakin' break?"

No matter the breed, every dog has one of three default dispositions: 1. Dipshit 2. Has a Job 3. Trying to Pick a Fight with God

Can we at least agree Branwell was the worst?

What in the ever-loving hell. This is a significant problem for researchers.

Is Google Books down or something?

Of freaking course I loved the new #TheMuppetShow. Reviews were embargoed from mentioning anything about the opening sequence, so all I'll say here is that for some reason, it made me burst into compulsive sobs. (In a good way.) consequence.net/2026/02/the-...

But the people who are in denial about the fact that hundreds of millions of people *use* these tools, willingly? That’s *bananas*. It might make you mad, you might not _like_ it, but the behavior is absolutely real. Fixing a problem requires confronting reality. The denialism about it is unreal.

Americans will really use anything but the metric system (complimentary)

Sigh. Sayyida al-Hurra was not a pirate queen. She was a legitimate and well-respected governor of a prosperous port city who, as part of her governance, commanded a number of privateers. It is *not* a compliment to call her a pirate queen.

Ever true.

The constitutional prohibition on using federal law to abridge the freedom of the press is unusually explicit and really does mean what it says.

It is a valid position to take to say "I will never use AI in my research and writing." You know what you mean and your values. It gets into trickier territory when we say "the humanities should never use AI." Literacy about this history and limitations of a commercial application are badly needed.

I think where the mistake happens is that assuming something without a clear, definitive, singular answer or even domain of inquiry means that the topic is "vague", when really the experience of complexity or confusion comes from layer upon layer of very focused information on the topic.

This is up and running!

Here's a thread of some Dan McQuade blogs that we really loved 🦅 The Garden State Parkway’s Jon Bon Jovi rest stop is playing fast and loose with famous quotes: defector.com/the-garden-s...

A thing that often makes me see red is execs saying "but we're doing an elevated version of [x]." What if you... just did x? When an exec says "elevated version of" you can be pretty sure they mean "I think this is trash so we're trying to not do the thing you want but make you think we're doing it"