“All right,” said Toad. “Let me think of a story to tell you.” Toad thought and thought. But he could not think of a story to tell Frog.

Philly! new feminist art opens next week!

Periodic Reminder: If it weren’t powerful, they wouldn’t be trying to destroy it.

“How to Report ICE” zines now available for these areas: NYC Philly Durham, NC All of Massachusetts I will add more as I get them done. Download them to print here: drive.google.com/drive/folder...

It will never not be depraved that universities sanctioned and participated in the harassing and criminalization of student activists for saying one day we would all be against this when now, suddenly, everyone is against this.

There is no special primary status for alphabetic scripts above ideographic ones, iconic signage, mathematical and scientific notation, or charts and diagrams. We read them all; none of them are subordinate to another, except out of literary and cultural prejudices

Remembering #EricGarner, sharing this poem by Ross Gay, posted by poet Othuke Umokoro, from TwX:

How is poetry like psychoanalysis? I had a fascinating conversation with Daniel Katz (@danielkatz.bsky.social) about Jack Spicer and his poem “Psychoanalysis: An Elegy.” open.spotify.com/episode/78hE...

Only just now discovering this Lucille Clifton poem dedicated to Clark Kent.

For what it's worth, this is precisely the reason the Klan wore hoods when they terrorized communities and disappeared unfavored minorities. Historically, it wasn't called doxxing it was just recognizing a fascist community member.

New Rosa Alcalá!

a place to start go.bsky.app/2Fq4P6e

Buy their books, buy their books, buy their books; ask your libraries to buy their books

Statement from @aaup-penn.bsky.social on our admin’s capitulation to Trump’s department of ed

Massive Attack does an excellent job of putting the Vylan controversy in perspective (from their Insta).

Not “limit.” Eliminate. And needlessly cower with embarrassing “apology” letters to graduated athletes. This headline is misleading, and the action is beyond embarrassing. Utterly shameless. And contra the research the institution materially supports.

I’m frustrated for many reasons at surface-skimming media history takes on AI like “people opposed the printing press too!” If media history is going to help us navigate the present, we have to reckon with something people often omit from those comparisons—the intersection of power & new media (1/4)

This is an amazing story about student journalists:

University managers are keen to support business, and right now business has realised that it won't make as much money from having competent employees as it will from using students as a market in which to hoover up education contracts that will let them attract still further VC investment

this piece was originally up at this same location during the 92 riots....

masculine days of dumbfounded machinic reserve an hour and a body wanting on animal street oxycephalic wolves and someone sequencing meat some father’s involution from pelvis to rough old they ...a good day for some new poems by Syd Zolf! socialtextjournal.org/two-poems-fr...

🔥🔥🔥

A beautiful set of tributes to Alice Notley: zonamotel.substack.com/p/tribute-wh...

You have three days, starting today, to leave a public comment with the FDA about, say, why COVID-19 boosters should remain available to everyone and also free. "Individual consumer" is the category you most likely want (unless you are one of the other categories; if so, choose that).

“Fewer books are going to be published. Some literary organizations won’t survive this.” For the LARB, I spoke with book publishers and lit mags impacted by Trump and DOGE's coup at the NEA. lareviewofbooks.org/article/we-d...

I wrote about close reading. What it is, why it matters, and what John Guillory gets right and wrong in his recent On Close Reading. Offers a sneak peek of a little of what @johannawinant.bsky.social and I are up to in our forthcoming Close Reading for the 21C www.thenation.com/article/soci...

A Chicago Pope implies the existence of an MLA Pope and APA Pope

This thread from @mattseybold.bsky.social is a great rundown of how AI preys upon already existing problems in higher ed. I’d only add that these are all exacerbated by precarity and the performance metrics associated with teaching in higher ed which boil down to retention and student satisfaction.

Higher education faculty members should read two new articles and discuss them deeply as a department/unit/etc. The NYMag article about AI and cheating + the NYT article by the professor at U. of Florida about working under the DeSantis regime. They are connected; discuss those connections.

"Grief is not a checkpoint. It travels with you. It gets there first. It sits beside you and does not speak." @oliverbaezbendorf.bsky.social on being trans in exile from the US. lithub.com/after-the-ro...

Long overdue. In your feed on Monday.

“April is the seduction of the world. And yet.” — Joshua Clover (RIP)

Excited for this too!

"We would exchange books to save our lives, to create a conversation that helped us challenge the violence of the culture around us and imagine something else [...] In a certain sense, you hold onto books as if they’re friends. And ammunition as well." Incredibly inspiring @mbsycamore.bsky.social

Excited about this book!

In 1963, the White House, pushing to establish the NEA, called for Americans “to take stock of the economic & structural needs of their cultural life." Now, it's being dismantled to fund one president's fever dream sculpture garden. Looking forward to tracking the NEA's history & impacts @ ASAP/16

With the UK ruling yesterday, I must recommend Sophie Lewis' book Enemy Feminisms. It clarifies the through-line from the white supremacy/bigotry of women in the name of feminism ~150 yrs ago to TERFism today. TERFs are brought to you by the British Empire - subjugating others for generations.

Outrage that 75% of the Venezuelan men rendered to El Salvador have no criminal record implies approval that 25% of those Venezuelan men deserved to be rendered to El Salvador. Where do you draw the line? Is an illegal u-turn deportable behavior? Stealing a candy bar? Growing weed?

The National Humanities Alliance is collecting information on canceled NEH grants to share with congressional leaders. This is legit fact finding in support of competent lobbying. If you've had your grant canceled, do let them know. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Equally true if your conference will be *in* the US, as air travel within the country is increasingly unsafe for non-citizens, and because many countries now have travel warnings for the US, meaning that international attendees really can’t go.

As Harvard pledges to "engage with" the neo-segregationist fascists, I am thinking about the 1850s. In 1850, Harvard admitted 3 Black students to its medical school. White students objected, so Harvard threw the Black students under the bus. nrs.lib.harvard.edu/urn-3:hms.co...

A few years ago I visited the National Museum of African American History & Culture with my grandparents. When we stepped out of the building my grandmother kept repeating the words “I lived it. I lived it. I lived it.” She’s still here. That history is still in her bones. You can never erase that.

On April 7, presented by Center for Research in Feminist, Queer and Transgender Studies; Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art; & Kelly Writers House: a discussion and book signing of Anteaesthetics: Black Aesthesis and the Critique of Form by Rizvana Bradley. More here: tinyurl.com/3zj3z8re

Eighteenth Brumaire stays current

The nation-state hasn’t always existed