The Mechademia 2026 CFP is now available! Join us at the National University of Singapore, 29-30 May 2026! Conference theme is "Traversing Trans-Asian Imaginaries: Anime, Manga, and Media Cultures" and ABSTRACTS ARE DUE 15 OCTOBER 2025. Full info at the link: www.mechademia.net/conferences/...

Text from a friend just now: "Why are “travel disruptions” the only part of this Air Canada story the CBC deems worthy of coverage? What about union busting & expecting a whole cohort of women workers to perform unpaid labour? WTF. How do these people think strikes work?" #cdnpoli #aircanadastrike

Francesca Albanese addresses delegates from 30 countries to discuss ways nations can try to stop Israel’s offensive.

"The Japanese government's plan to end financial support for foreign doctoral students has drawn criticism from students and academics who have labeled the step unjust and counterproductive to fostering a diverse, inclusive and thriving academic environment."

Bye forever, WeTransfer.

Lecture: Julia Bullock, “Beauvoir in Japan: Japanese Women and The Second Sex” Kanagawa U. Minatomirai Campus Wed 23 July 3:30–5pm (hybrid) Pls preregister to attend in person. Preregistration & Zoom details: human.kanagawa-u.ac.jp/kenkyu/sympo...

UPDATE through Fox News' 4 p.m. hour: Biden: 85 mentions Epstein: STILL ZERO Fox is following Trump's marching orders and shutting up about the story currently consuming the MAGA movement. bsky.app/profile/did:... ·

Trump & Republicans' Big, Ugly Law is disastrous for Massachusetts. —300,000 could lose healthcare —175,000 could lose food assistance —Higher energy & education costs —More ICE kidnappings in our communities —& much more. We won't forget who did this. www.wbur.org/news/2025/07...

More than 25 protesters have been detained by police a day after the activist group was banned in the UK.

What did housing look like in postwar Japan, and how was it advertised?🤔🏡 Today’s #NCCShowcase is a student research article from work in the Prange Collection at UMD! Haruna Maeyama dives into their wealth of catalogs to explore this fascinating topic: prangecollection.wordpress.com/2025/04/13/p...

Check out Sonia Izabell Putri Ganov, “Orientasi Seksual Orang Dewasa Penikmat Konten Boys’ Love,” Jurnal Cakrawala Ilmiah 4, no.10 (2025), bajangjournal.com/index.php/JC... #OpenAccess

Check out Hong-Chi Shiau, “Thai Boys’ Love Pilgrimages and Experiential Tourism: Chinese Female Fandom in a Queer Utopia,” Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change (2025), doi.org/10.1080/1476...

Check out Thomas Baudinette,”Exploring the Rise of Activism for LGBTQ+ Rights in Contemporary Thailand within Boys Love Idol Culture,” Celebrity Studies, 10.1080/19392397.2025.2521219 #OpenAccess

Check out Ranny Rastati & Md Azalanshah Md Syed, “Empowering Women: Indonesian Muslim Girl Fans, Thailand’s Y-Series, and Gender Equality,” Manusya: Journal of Humanities 28 (2025), doi.org/10.1163/2665... #OpenAccess

Check out Thomas Baudinette,”Exploring the Rise of Activism for LGBTQ+ Rights in Contemporary Thailand within Boys Love Idol Culture,” Celebrity Studies, 10.1080/19392397.2025.2521219 #OpenAccess

Check out Megan Catherine Rose & Patrick W. Galbraith, “Mutating Hyperfemininity in Bishōjo-Inspired Art: On Sugary Symbiote,” M/C Journal 28, no. 2 (2025), doi.org/10.5204/mcj.... #OpenAccess

Check out Ashley Morningstar, “Action and Fighting Girls: The Ethnographic Interplay of Naoko Takeuchi’s Feminism,” Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics (2025), doi.org/10.1080/2150... #OpenAccess

Check out Moe Yamauchi, “Virtualised Desire: The Role of Cosplay and Sexual Selfies in Japanese Otaku Culture,” Participations 21, no. 1 (2025), www.participations.org/21-01-06-yam... #OpenAccess

The National Park Service is already underfunded and understaffed. To put its budget on the chopping block as we continue to see a rise in visitors at parks across the county is reckless and thoughtless. It's the worst idea for "America's Best Idea."

“family members identified the victim as Narciso Barranco, a father to three sons who are all U.S. Marines” ktla.com/news/local-n...

I'll be speaking at Variations: Transmedia Storytelling and Queer Transfigurations in Seoul July 4 & 5. The event will be in a mix of Korean & English (but I don't think individual talks are being interpreted).Z Details are at the link. skb.skku.edu/korean/commu...

It's our open day today and I'm on strike with @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social. Management plans to cut £140 million are opportunistic, misguided and wrong, and will harm the future of the university. Read our Joint Unions Financial Working Group blog: www.ucuedinburgh.org.uk/blog/2eppzf7...

Lecture: Daniele Durante, “Why Is Cross-Dressing Perceived as a Fray in the Social Fabric? A Case Study from Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Japan” Kanagawa U. Minatomirai Campus Wed., June 18, 3:30–5pm (in person only) Preregistration Requested: forms.gle/ji2nWbnZgxGp...

Photographs. A sewing project. A prayer card from their father’s funeral. Some drivers lost sentimental items after their cars were towed in Connecticut. “It was hurtful, because there’s nothing you can really do,” one owner said.

Trump is still defying the Supreme Court order to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia home. Make sure your Members of Congress hear from you about this attack on our Constitutional rights: act.indivisible.org/...

Hybrid Lecture @meganrose.bsky.social "Hyperfeminine Harajuku: Exploring Queer KAWAII Practices in a Tokyo Subcultural District" Kanagawa U, Minatomirai Campus, M8015 Wed 21 May 3:30–5pm In-person preregistration forms.gle/7FF8yLSmDkRF... Zoom (no prereg) Meeting ID: 985 5806 9693 Passcode: KUMMC

New: Helping to lay off 90% of the CFPB’s staff while holding $715K worth of stocks in companies that would benefit from a weakened CFPB “looks like a pretty clear-cut violation” of the federal criminal conflict-of-interest statute, one ethics expert said.

Did One of My Students Hate Me So Much They’d Lie to Get Me in Trouble? How Florida's war on "woke" on college campuses is just a hint of how the Trump/GOP regime will destroy American universities. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/07/o...

Reminder that in 58% of Oklahoma state house races, Republicans won by default. Fight everywhere.

When I left the Washington Post in 2023, my colleagues and I were worried AI would hoover up our work and enable "zombies" to churn out stories based on our reporting and writing styles. Today WaPo announced a partnership with OpenAI. And here it is: Zombie Gillian Brockell. I DID NOT WRITE THIS.

Indiana state legislature just staged a hostile takeover of IU, functionally eliminating tenure, promising to close smaller (hum) majors, taking over the IU board, and cutting the IU budget. This is so bleak

Many Cultures Borrow. Japan Transforms. Well, Not Me. After All these Years, I'm Still the Self-Satisfied Dud Mansplaining the Country to Everyone Even Though I Neither Speak Nor Read Japanese. By Pico Iyer

Check out this amazing (free) online symposium "Queer and Feminist Perspectives on Japanese Popular Cultures Symposium 2025" May 19 to 22!

In #TWC45, Tess Tianzi Chen reviews "Queer transfigurations: Boys love media in Asia," edited by @jameswelker.bsky.social which Chen feels provides a good overview of queer popular culture in Asia! Read the full review here: buff.ly/RhDD29A

There is something profoundly perverse in this award going to a photograph taken for the NYTimes, which has done more than any media outlet in the world to enable US-backed Israeli massacres and dismemberment of children in Gaza.

If you're a US university student this is funding that can help you come on exchange to Korea. #KoreaSociety koreasociety.smapply.io/prog/the_kor...

You know the *only* reason he got out so fast was a reporter live posted about this for hours. And, a large amount of public pressure. Every time someone gets grabbed, there has to be a robust public response immediately.

Couple of folks came in here to suggest I cherry picked @gavinnewsom.bsky.social’s quote about calling Kilmer Abrego Garcia a “distraction” out of context. So here is a link to the piece. Ofc Newsom has an account here and can explain himself. PS: If you call me a MAGA you are getting blocked.

How is it possible U.S. citizens are being held as illegal aliens in America even after they produce their birth certificate? This is intolerable. www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/...

Two months before Calvin Alexander’s parole hearing date, he was told he was no longer eligible. Why? An algorithm had deemed the nearly blind 70-year-old, who uses a wheelchair, a “moderate risk,” barring him from speaking to the parole board. By @richardawebster.bsky.social, w/ @veritenews.org

Check out Ratna Indra Setyaningurm, Wanodya Kusumastuti, & Widyaning Hapasari, "Hubungan Antara Intensitas Membaca Manga Genre Boys Love Terhadap Sikap Positif Kepada Homoseksua," Risoma: Jurnal Riset Sosial Humaniora Dan Pendidikan, 3, no. 2 (2025), journal.appisi.or.id/index.php/ri... #OpenAccess

Check out Sabrina Jilan Tsabitah and Dewi Fatmasari Edy, "Decision-making dynamics of straight fujoshi in enjoying Boys Love (BL) content [in Indonesia]," Psychology Research on Education and Social Sciences, 6(1), 1-20, March 2025, dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/press... #OpenAccess

If you're in the Atlanta area, please join us TOMORROW at Emory University for a talk by @jameswelker.bsky.social on his new book!

The Trans+ Virtual Centre of Excellence invites you to apply to present at our first annual Symposium on 8th July: www.gsmd.ac.uk/whats-on/tra... Deadline for submissions 28th April #AcademicSky 🌈🎓 #Conference #OpenCall #Symposium #Opportunity #Queer #LGBTQIA2S+ #LGBT

I'll be giving a public lecture at UPenn in Williams Hall 623 (255 S 36th St) from 1–2:30 PM EST on my new book. (The original start time was noon.) It's hybrid. Though it doesn't say so, preregistrants should be getting a Zoom link before the event. www.eventbrite.com/e/rethinking...

Friends and colleagues at/near Penn State! I'll be giving a public talk hosted by the Humanities Institute on Thursday, March 20th from 3:30-5:00 PM. Would love to see some familiar faces in the crowd as I present some new and ongoing research! events.la.psu.edu/event/mediat...

This is tomorrow afternoon!

Check out Katharina Hülsmann, Japanische Fan-Comics: Transkulturelle Potenziale und lokale Gemeinschaft (Transcript, 2025), www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-7... #OpenAccess

SICKENING—Trump’s DHS just deported a surgeon from Brown—who is here legally on an H1B visa that doesn’t expire until 2027, & committed no crimes. Trained in the U.S. at Ohio State, University of Washington, and Yale as a **transplant surgeon**, she is a highly trained doctor on kidney transplants.

90% of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer die from the disease. That's why the medical community is excited about the results of a small trial in which nearly half of the pancreatic cancer patients who received an mRNA vaccine for the disease remained relapse-free three years later.