How do classic stories teach us to read certain bodies in limited ways? Drawing on Paulo Freire, this new article examines how narrative traditions keep reinforcing narrow interpretive paths. Read it here: doi.org/10.25189/267...

Yesterday we sent physical copies to our wonderful zine contributors - artists, activists, and academics across 3 continents and 7 countries! It feels very special for this little mycelium network, grown from a random idea with a couple of friends into a small conference last year, to reach so far.

Feels pretty incredible to have our #ClimateHope zine finally out existing in the world. Here's to hope, not as a passive state, but as a call to collective action! 🌳🌻✊❤️🌻🌳

I was a mature and independent 15 yo. So when I started hanging out with men in their 30s, family and friends thought "weird, but that must be what she wants". I don't blame my family and friends. I blame people like Megyn Kelly who perpetuate discourses that excuse men groping their way to power.

Lesson from my marketing students (I don't teach marketing. They are my students nonetheless): apparently a TikTok influencer asking their viewer to subscribe is now called a "call to action"? First I was confused. Now I'm thinking it's one of the most cynical phrasal borrowings I've encountered.

If you earned 2 million dollars PER HOUR, working 40 hours a week, for 85 years, and didn't spend a single penny, you'd still not be as rich as El*n M*sk is right now. Not even close. And now he's calling his critics "terrorists" for saying that maybe he doesn't need more money.

The cognitive dissonance between believing that grading is a tool of oppression which should be thrown out with the bath water and absolutely refusing to consider re-grading an assignment because can't you just respect me dammit, I have other things I need to be doing.

the race to declare that this is not a game changing victory is in full force. the biggest trolls, shit stirrers, naysayers, and oppositionally defiant idiots will be out in force today trying to get you to temper your joy. fuck them. hold on to your hope

Exactly zero of the fifty university students in my class today knew who Kurt Vonnegut was. That's wild right? ... Right?

It seems that I've been ghosted by the unicorn. 🦄👻 🥀

I take movies too seriously, is the first thing to know. Despite this, I don't remember anyone's name, that's the second. Then another 5: - Le Bête (2023) - Three Colors: Red (1994) - Mirror (1975) - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) - House (1977)

I take an abolitionist stance toward LLMs. And I do not use the word lightly. In academic circles, there is often an a priori rejection of "absolutist" arguments as illegitimate, "unscientific" or "counterproductive". Sometimes abolition *is* the correct stance. That shouldn't be controversial.

Can someone please call linguists to the stand for this kind of thing? Language changes. "Burger" now means a roundish savory patty eaten between buns. It's called semantic widening. It literally happens all the time.

Saying "not that!" is not enough. You also have to say, "so what about this instead?" That is prefiguration: moving past the condemnation and critique of current systems to imagine an alternative and *act as if* it is a reality. Sell enough tickets to your show, and it becomes our reality.

I had a first round interview with a unicorn-level exceptional job today... Please pray to all your goddesses and gods for me 🙏

You should go see One Battle After Another.

As a scholar of communication and cognition, I will say that this is in fact a very very stupid thing to do, unless your goal is to shut down any chance of persuasion and re-education. And if that is your goal, what exactly is your end game? Irreconcilable hatred? That won't save us.

We need this kind of campaigning in the US. And that's only going to be possible if we finally give up on our two-party system. It's holding us hostage as entrenched powers drag our country rightward into hate.

I have this lovely poem pinned to the noticeboard on the corridor outside my office.

Blue-tinted headlights don't just mess with night vision, they are down right dangerous for folks with photosensitivity (and, as a consequence, everyone else around them). I'm lucky that my epilepsy is very well-controlled with medicine. But even with that, these lights can trigger migraines.

Spot on: "Adopting nativist discourse and policies does not win back far-right voters. It leads to losses for centrist and leftwing parties. Moreover, it raises the salience of the topic and the expectations of the government, which will always fall short" www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

So I recognize that, in the grand scheme of things, this is a deeply unimpressive thing. But... I finally learned how to use a sewing machine, and made this over-engineered drawstring bag as my first project. Making things is fun, especially when you get to do it in a super supportive makerspace 😌

"I want a battle plan. Yet if Overshoot lacks such a plan, it nonetheless fully describes the theater of war. "... one of the most important books about climate change in the canon." In advance of Andreas Malm and Wim Carton’s forthcoming book, Genevieve Guenther revisits their first volume:

"This might seem like a drastic accusation for such small infractions. But indulging in the familiar can habituate us away from exploring new ideas. The result can be the death of liberal democratic institutions – slowly, then all at once."

When killing people for being homeless is more conceivable than just giving people housing, where can one even start the conversation? Chat Pile, please: youtu.be/sER0FzJO-c0?...

Catching up on writing (part 1) A May Day post, a little late for Labor Day. In a better world though, perhaps every day would be celebrating us workers, and this post would be right on time. outsidemywindow.org/2025/05/04/m...

If a strange being of light had appeared on the trail to tell me "so, big news, you're actually dead, and this is the afterlife", I think that would have been easier to accept than the fact that I was seeing this view, here on earth, just a 1.5 hour drive from my apartment. Viva la #Cascadia 🌲☁️🗻☁️🌲

Our cat is a confirmed kleptotherm. We thought she loved us, always curling up on our laps... And then we got her a weight-activated heating pad, thus rendering our fleshy inconveniently fidgety laps fully obsolete.

📢Call for papers: The 8th International Conference on Ecolinguistics will take place from 9th to 11th July 2026 in Rennes, France...ICE-8 aims to provide a dynamic and stimulating space for sharing ecolinguistic research and practices. #ecolinguistics

We got to play our new climate metaphor card game at this year's Researching and Applying Metaphor conference! Thank you @raammetaphor.bsky.social for yet another awesome conference, and all you awesome participants for joining the fun ☺️ Free print & play version coming soon!

@textdiscourse.bsky.social Scholman, M., & Laparle, S. (2025). Can gestures speak louder than words? The effect of gestural discourse markers on discourse expectations. Discourse Processes, 62(6–7). doi.org/10.1080/0163...

I'm not a "bouquet" person, but I will say that this has been an unexpectedly nice perk of my partner working on a flower farm. Side note: really hoping dahlias dry in an interesting and semi-stable way. I know beauty is ephemeral or whatever, but still.

Taylor Dock Boardwalk in Bellingham, WA. My phone decided to match my eyesight in blurriness somehow, which I find strangely beautiful. #cascadia

Insurance agent: You're fully covered and can choose any shop you want! Me: Great! How about this well-regarded family-owned business? Agent: 😬 How about one of these two shite mega-corporations? Me: 🤦... Can I get reimbursed for my actual choice? Agent: I can't tell you that. But you can try ☺️

Not a ski lift or mountaintop chalet in sight. My goddess did I miss this wilderness. #cascades

A Not-Rothko (in the spirit of @richardmortimer.bsky.social ) Driving West through North Dakota. The Badlands just beginning to introduce themselves.

✨ New publication ✨ "The devil is in the gestures: Multimodal metaphors in preaching" with the wonderful Bruna Louzada. Open access in Multimodality & Society Take away: televangelists are really effective gesturers, for better or worse. doi.org/10.1177/2634...

I’m happy to see Prof @veronikakoller.bsky.social, Dr Jessica Aiston, Dr @alexiconartist.bsky.social & Dr Mark McGlashan challenging both Ofcom and The Guardian’s portrayal of the manosphere as benign. You can read their letter here: tinyurl.com/mtktjcrb

@cadaad.bsky.social @cadaad-journal.bsky.social any climate-concerned CDA folks planning to come to RaAM this year? Due to, well, world circumstances, we're looking for a couple of more voices to join our panel. If you're interested, please let me know! 🌿🌞

Ah yes, study by white man says that fear of misogyny is overblown. Holy crap @theguardian.com what is this?

Quite possibly my last academic conference, and I think it's gonna be a good one. 🌿🌞

Um, Netherlands... what?

Well, here I am, grading 50 AI generated student papers while fascism spreads, genocide continues, and our climate collapses. But at least my tiny cactus is really going all out with this flower. Thank you, tiny cactus.

This postcard from @gothic-sway.bsky.social has been on my fridge for years and yet I JUST noticed how funny it is. Yay syntactic ambiguities! If I were still teaching syntax and semantics, I'd definitely sneak this on a slide to remind my students how (charmingly) lame I am.

In addition to making me coffee every single morning, my husband @arablelands.bsky.social also makes heady experimental ambient music. There is a new album. It is good. You should listen 🌿😌 arablelands.bandcamp.com/album/drifti...

Apologies for not answering emails or doing any other form of work. My cat has mandated a mental health day.

It seems the phrase "toxic masculinity" is actually quite literal. Typical western masculine behaviors result in higher fossil fuel use (y'know all those big boy steaks and super trucks)

Sometimes when I'm not writing spicy blogs or doing public art projects, I'm doing "serious" work on hand gestures in discourse. Weird right? Here's our latest article. Pretty fun. Plus it pushes back on our written language bias in linguistics. So the spice is still there! doi.org/10.1080/0163...

Well, yes, this is precisely what their banned word list was designed to do. There's people they don't want in science, researching things that puts white male supremacy into question. Disproportionately affecting women, ethnic minorities, and folks with disabilities is the whole goddamn point.

Homelessness is solved by giving people homes. It's not radical. You know what is? Violently sweeping the streets, stealing the few possessions of the most vulnerable, and criminalizing people because the system failed them. Radically inhumane and ineffective. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...