Today's mail:

online.ucpress.edu/representati... The new issue of Representations is AMAZING not coz of my article on Baldwin’s “Just Above My Head.” Read Sreyashi Ray on birds and breathable air; Sean Silver on Sterne’s marbled page; Vanessa Lyon on Delores Fullman and Rauschenberg; and Tom Laqueur on dogs!

For anyone interested who's in the vicinity tomorrow...

In other excellent Representations news, Carlos Alonso Nugent's article "Drawing and Disrupting Borders in the Wake of the US-Mexico War" from issue 166 just won the annual essay prize from the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography (SoFCB). online.ucpress.edu/representati...

The latest issue of Representations contains a lovely tribute to Natalie Zemon Davis by French historian Denis Crouzet, along with a bouquet of fine articles on Vernon Lee, Wordsworth, Donne, and poetic apostrophe and slavery in Ancient Rome. online.ucpress.edu/representati...

During a busy fall semester, I missed announcing the impressive special issue of Representations (no. 172) on Techniques of Legal Personhood, with guest editors Lindsay O’Connor Stern and Julie Stone Peters and a sparkling list of contributors. Worth checking out! online.ucpress.edu/representati...

At last, Michael Warner's compelling Berkeley Tanner Lectures are out there in the world awaiting readers.

It’s a Dakota Staton kind of morning as we reacclimate to chilly, gloomy San Francisco.

A cat with Franciscan leanings in the monastery on the island of Badija near Korčula.

Thinking of my great uncle Anthony Stipulin here at St. Anthony’s church in the woods on Korčula.

The latest issue of Representations is full of great pieces on attending to all different kinds of objects, images, book catalogues, and even attending to attention itself. online.ucpress.edu/representati...

The joys of home

Making flash cards today to consolidate declensions in Croatian...

online.ucpress.edu/representati... Lots of intriguing reading in the new issue of Reps including a wonderful piece by @drbibliomane.bsky.social

A ray of sunshine on a cloudy day. Congratulations to all these folks! www.gf.org/stories/anno...

HAPPENING NOW 📈 EURO AND YEN SURGING ⚠️ US DOLLAR FALLING ⚠️ STOCK FUTURES CRASHING ⚠️ BOND MARKETS IMPLODING ⚠️ 10YR TREASURY YIELD SOARING

For those in need of mood enhancement.

Good news from the LRB Bookstore in London today. Also, copies of the US edition are now out in the world!

Always important to spend time with friends and acquaintances in Paris, even if them being locked up at night makes close communication challenging. Something also poignant in the way that the Grisette de 1830 and Frédérick Lemaître are forever separated by the unforgiving Rue du Faubourg du Temple.

I just called my reps with @5calls.org, you should too: 5calls.org

Coming on March 25 from Allen Lane in the UK and Semiotext(e) in the US — a book by Didier Eribon committed to the struggle for a better world than this one! Just got my translator’s copies today.

5calls.org/issue/s9-wom... 5 calls is a really helpful platform for ally-ship....

I know it's hard not to be preoccupied with other things, but if you need a distraction, here's a fun forum in the American Book Review on "Listening" organized by Bryan Counter that I contributed to -- a seed planted for an upcoming project... americanbookreview.org/focus-listen...

Please, everyone, drop what you’re doing and read this:

🌎 It’s time to reclaim social media. Billionaires & venture capital shouldn’t control our digital lives. #FreeOurFeeds is raising $4M to build a public-interest alternative. Chip in today to make it happen freeourfeeds.com

I've been published in the journal that bears the name of my field for the first time! Better late than never...Thanks to @fauxneem.bsky.social Michael Allan and his team! I don't think the issue is up on line yet, but once it is I'll be happy to share a pdf with anyone who's interested....

Just because…

Regular cat pic posts seem to be what is called for. Here are Sir Rory and Mr. Willoughby being exemplary.

Parisian pavlova. Reasonable reward for a reasonably productive trip.

The first of three papers I have appearing this fall is on Proust and understanding music. It began as a paper for the NYU "Fugitive Proust" conference. Here it is in an issue of Textual Practice of papers from the conference. A sketch of part of a book to come... www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10....

Writing letters and postcards through the following platforms for the rest of this season: votefwd.org; markersfordemocracy.org; and postcardstovoters.org. Every day's news makes me want to write a few more.

Blanching peaches and nectarines for pie (with blackberries to boot). Pretending like it’s a hot summer’s day here in SF, where it’s actually a pleasant, sunny 70.

I feel like a bit of a stereotype making these for the last undergrad Proust class this spring, but whatever. At least they are turning out okay — my first run at them in fact, so that wasn’t a sure thing.

Maryse Condé taught one semester a year for a few years in the Berkeley French Department right when I started teaching there. Her office was either next door to mine or two doors down, I can’t quite remember. I remember reading Ségou and then Traversée and then Moi, Tituba with amazement.

It was eleven years ago today that I got to interview Ursula Le Guin when she visited Berkeley's Townsend Center. A wonderful memory I feel lucky to have. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovZ6...

granta.com/the-life-old... An excerpt from Didier Eribon's latest book just appeared in Granta (translated by yours truly). Look for the whole book from Semiotexte in the US and Penguin in the UK sometime next year...

Cleaning out my childhood home, I discover Peter Pears sang in South Bend, Indiana in 1977. I wish I could tell my teenage self to buy a ticket and then find a way to meet him. #queermissedconnections

Happy MLA sightings... #MLA2024 @modernlanguage.bsky.social

I arrive in Paris for a 12-day research stint and also get to announce some cheery news at the end of a gloomy year.

Thanks to the editors of Nineteenth-Century French Studies for giving me a chance to think about readability: doi.org/10.1353/ncf....

The latest NCFS journal is a banger, with so many of my faves involved including @hannahfrydman.bsky.social @cofo.bsky.social @michaellucey.bsky.social and some folks not on here like Elizabeth Emery & Darcy Grimaldo-Grigsby. Get on it! (Also me, I need to get on it) www.ncfs-journal.org/current-toc

Slowly weaning myself from that other place.