First blog post of the new year. Dissecting where the state of Florida is regarding its attacks upon public higher ed.

Proud to be a part of this collection & writing with a good comrade and friend.

The Man Yelling ‘Iceberg!’ on the Hollywood Titanic www.nytimes.com/2025/11/16/b.... Who isn’t reading this guy who studies Hollywood or has an interest in it?

I take pride in this recent dispatch that combines part film review of the best movie out there with analysis of our sordid political moment where historical erasure of marginalized communities reigns supreme.

This is going to be rad. Helping break down the film’s multiple meanings will be the powerhouse trio of Dr. Sika Dagbovie-Mullins, Dr. Regis M. Fox, and Dr. Daniel DeVinney. Come in costume if the spirit catches you. October 30, 2025, 7 PM CU 107 (Campus Movie Theater)

Their anger over the film is as predicable as their intolerance for difference.

something i put out a while ago. my entry into podcasting

This Thursday at 7 PM. Free pizza. We will be having the director Al'Ikens Plancher of Boat People and the Deputy Director of Florida Immigrant Rights Coalition, Renata Bozzetto (an FAU grad), as part of our Q&A. Florida Atlantic University, Culture and Society Theaters

Raoul Peck has to be one of the most interesting doc filmmakers out there. *Exterminate All The Brutes* is a brutal masterpiece. *I Am Not Your Negro* was an incredible excavating the brilliance of James Baldwin. I can't wait to see this one.

Trump Offered Universities an Invitation for a Deal. Some See a Trap. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u.... This is appalling and any school signing onto this should be ashamed. university of texas is already as signing on. I fear Florida will be next since we war with texas with anti-intellectualism

An Antifascist Movie at a Fascist Moment www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/o... I mostly agree with. Check out the film.

‘One Battle After Another’ Ticket Sales Are Solid (With an Asterisk) www.nytimes.com/2025/09/28/b.... I would argue one of his best films, and a film that speaks to the moment while also the complex psychic terrain and fallout that accompanies resistance,

Judge Rules Trump Unlawfully Targeted Noncitizens Over Pro-Palestinian Speech www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/u.... Let’s keep pushing back

The most recent post regarding the attacks against public education and the closing of the American mind.

Given the centrality of immigration in South Florida, we will be screening Boat People (2024) and Black Girl (1966). Al’lkens Plancher, director of Boat People, and Renata Bozzetto of the Florida Immigrant Rights Coalition will join us. October 9, 2025, CU 110 (Campus Movie Theaters)

This along with the attacks against educators across the country for posting on social media is a levelling-up of the authoritarian playbook against education used in Hungary, Turkey, and Poland.

Trump Is Wiping Out Unions. Why Are They So Quiet? we certainly need to be mass mobilizing & organizing more vibrantly.

Solidarity with the faculty fighting back against such cuts. "Austerity" is often used as an alibi, not an actual reason, for gutting programs that don't align with a functionalist, technocratic view of the world.

My newest post with some resistance events coming up in the near future.

open to all on september 2 @ 6:30 pm

join our students in protesting against our campus police partnering with ICE on sept. 5 @ 3 pm

They Saw Their Neighbors Taken Away by ICE. Then They Made a Plan. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/o.... We are starting the semester discussing this in my radical media and social movements class

A new piece straight out of the swamp.

Passed my basic rider course last weekend to get my motorcycle license. Please be kind on the road to me.

Some new work my comrade, John F. Lennon, and I have been working on regarding Northern Ireland, Brexit, the Troubles, and street art. Branching out a little. Proud of what we did. Look forward to working on more.

Majorly revising an article on Sound of Freedom, white supremacist media and porno-nationalism. I had the details before but not a coherent argument yet. Think it’s finally coming together. I’m kind of amazed there’s no good scholarly article on this film, at least that I know of.

Florida-- pumping money into the carceral-industrial complex, not education.

OMFG!!! We are going to 11 this September!

A new blog post regarding the cinema series we created here at FAU. The blog is a dry run for an article I am working on for a collection

Stocked for t he Fourth.

A new piece that John and I wrote on Minaw, an all-female Irish art collective

If you are interested in following my Dispatches from the Academic Trenches, please click below and scroll down to the sign up page.

If you don't have a union but are interested in forming one, EWOC is a vital source that you should tap into. They will get back to you within 72 hours and assist in providing guidance on how to organize your workspace.

A most recent blog post about the South Florida Workers' Forum some of us from UFF participated in. I tie this together to broader efforts to coalition build through groups like Higher Education Labor United.

HELU offered a transcript of a podcast that I was a part of with some great other folks like Robin Goodman, Katie Rainwater, Nicole Morse, and Jordan Scott about organizing in Florida. Check it out.

A fascinating historical fiction novel about how director GW Pabst, who escapes Nazi Germany, returns in order to help his ailing mother. Disturbing how the compromises, rationalizations, magical thinking, and psychological pressures squeeze out his unceasing conformity.

@beccalew.bsky.social hey, reaching out to you to see if you might be interested in being a part of an edited collection on right wing media activism and resistance that a colleague and I and working on. Can send more details via email. Dm me where I can contact yoh if this appeals to you

Slightly idealized, but I agree with the general idea & support of punk. Made me consider the students writing their own final in the class I might teach this.

Reflecting on Ivy League delusions of resistance and the actual fight going on here in Swamp state against authoritarians who are trying to take over public higher ed.

I’m halfway in this amazing biography on Frantz Damon. Highly recommend.

It is nice to use my skills slightly as a film scholar for this most recent post. Welcome to Swamp U.

I am surprised that this interview with Rufo hasn't been talked about more. In it, he lays out the campaign against public education and higher ed.

Proud to be involved with these folk fighting for public higher education and against authoritarianism. Stay tuned for the edited collection that will be coming out regarding this next year.

Probably against my better judgment: a new blog on dispatches from the academic trenches at Swamp U:

It’s been around seven years since I’ve physically attended the SCMS conference. Looking forward to it. Hit me up if you’re in Chicago.

Whoever debates the white supremacy of Trump administration should really pay heed to the eugenics argument going on here by this executive order.

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/w... at least someone has a democracy.

Solidarity Cinema Series was another hit. Over 60 attendees. Director Steve Maing. A local organizer Zack Boff. Our UFF 2nd VP Jake Henson. Thanks to all attend and have made every event super succesful. Stay tuned for the fall line-up.

We really need to push back against the overreach of government trying to censor independent films, books, and ideas that it disagrees with. The brazen attack suggests a rough time for the moment.