Oddballs unite for a Euro summer!

The CFP for next year's joint MSA/BAMS conference in Loughborough, UK is out! As a longtime oddball, am thrilled for a Euro summer, 'Weird Modernisms'-style @moderniststudies.bsky.social @modernistudies.bsky.social

This graduate mentoring program designed by @jessmasters.bsky.social is a new MSA initiative, and I wish existed when I was a grad student. Pass it along to any graduate students working in modernism or modernist-adjacent fields, like the Harlem Renaissance, 20th-century studies, etc.

Finally, the MSA Board is excited to announce a new graduate mentoring program! Graduate student MSA members have the opportunity to be paired with a senior faculty member for one-on-one mentoring sessions. More info can be found when you register for the conference. @jessmasters.bsky.social

Here you go! I'll write some new ones for this semester too. They loved them. The "read without your phone or screens in the room" was a revelation, and many of them decided to keep doing it. They had NO IDEA (& were horrified) how often they interrupt themselves to look at a phone for no reason.

Further signs of crisis; www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

EVERYTHING HERE IS EXPIRED

We’ve run the numbers and seen all the data models. It’s not looking good.

This is why I went back to grad school (though also not thyroid)

Happy democracy sausage day to all who celebrate (Australian Federal election, everyone celebrates, it's mandatory)

Voting is open for several positions on the MSA Exec Board! Have your say here---

"That computer, and that software, relied on the skilled, technical, embodied expertise and labor of thousands of women, including women of color."

The deadline for the 2025 MSA Conference in Boston has been extended to April 15! If you've been thinking of submitting a panel, paper, or roundtable proposal, you now have more time to do so. It will feel good to gather to talk about modernism, the 20th century, and higher education. Join us!

Australasian modernists, the abstract deadline for the AMSN guaranteed panel at MSA 2025 is one week away. Join us in Boston! amsn.org.au/events/

Nothing has made me feel more connected to my field, and more proactive in helping to preserve the things I value in it, than serving on the MSA Board. If you’re interested, I cannot recommend it enough.

MSA Members! Are you interested in serving on the MSA Board, which runs our organization? We need you! There are four positions open: 2nd VP, Treasurer, Vice Program Chair, and Contingent Faculty Rep. Nominations are open until April 21. More info here: www.moderniststudies.org/about/board-...

The Wallflower Avant-Garde by @glavey.bsky.social is one of those texts I return to, again and again, when thinking about all things shapely excess, multiplicity in motion, living paintings, and how queer ekphrasis bends our notions of word and image. If I could use it as a pillow, I would.

I needed this reminder today. “Attacks on academia show the continued importance of critical intellectual work as a collective endeavor.”

Are you affiliated with the Australian Modernist Studies Network? Want to hang with some Australians/New Zealanders/Pacific scholars in Boston? Submit your ideas on "Southern (Infra)Structures" for AMSN's guaranteed panel at MSA 2025! @moderniststudies.bsky.social @modernism-asia.bsky.social

Last few hours to submit for 'Generous Modernisms' -- have thoughts on the impossibility (or necessity) of generosity in academia? Read a generous modernist text? Thinking about generous scholarship? Resisting or examining scarcity? Consider submitting a paper to us! @moderniststudies.bsky.social

CFP MLA 2026: submit an abstract for MSA's guaranteed session at MLA Toronto on: all things modernism and generosity, excess, 'too much' (or just enough), (free) labour, generous scholarship/writing, etc. etc. @moderniststudies.bsky.social @modernlanguage.bsky.social @mmodernity.bsky.social

I will never forget the photo of Zelenskyy’s face after he saw Russia’s war crimes in Bucha in 2022. He seemed to age years in an afternoon. Watching him constantly cross the world asking for aid that should have been thrown at him is one of the deepest shames of our age.

A guy who used to be a comedian & is good at improv and dealing with hecklers and who has also spent the last 3 years in a war zone turns out to be a guy you can’t out-alpha, imagine that

What drives me crazy about the anti-DEI rhetoric is everyone wants to be judged on merit. But you can't be judged on merit if you can't even get in the door because you don't fit some prejudiced definition of who is capable and who isn't

In my excitement over the @spacebetween.bsky.social journal's new book reviews, I accidentally missed the extended (and excellent) review essay by Michelle Moore @memoore6.bsky.social! Michelle discusses the new complete edition of Fitzgerald's magazine stories (edited by @jnolan.bsky.social ...

Another MSA-sponsored CFP for MLA: calling all modernists AND early modernists for Doing Modernism with the Early Moderns / Doing Early Modernism with the Modernists. Submit abstract by March 15 to Kate Schnur: Kate.Schnur (at) qc.cuny.edu 1/

A positive review from @hartmann-villalta.bsky.social for #MeToo and #Modernism, co-edited with Jerrica Jordan. She writes: "this edited collection is a must-read for those working in modernist studies" -- Go to @cupress.bsky.social to order! scalar.usc.edu/works/the-sp...

The new issue of The Space Between journal (@spacebetween.bsky.social) "Searching for the Truly Strong Man: Masculinities 1914-1945" is out! Including a brand new suite of book reviews, edited by @sarahgleesonwhite.bsky.social and myself. scalar.usc.edu/works/the-sp...

One thing that I'm increasingly coming to believe is that stories are going to be central to what comes next. Stories of the harm done. Stories of the great things achieved by government in the past. Stories of valor kindness and quotidian simple resistance.

Consider submitting your ideas to an MLA 2026 roundtable on academic and modernist generosities! We're looking for a range of 5-7min papers interrogating ideas of modernism and gifts, pedagogy and (free) labor, the generosity of text, and if/how generosity can become a politics of resistance.

On Feb. 14th I try always to give honor to one of the greatest contributors to American democracy in our nation’s history, Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery, Douglass never knew his actual birthdate, and adopted Feb. 14th as the day. His penetrating insights about our country inspire me daily.

Howard University is now a R1 university, the first HBCU with a research one designation. H-U definitely knows!

The MSA has a sponsored roundtable for MLA 2026! Generous Modernism. "Generosity" in academia that interrogate: how generosity fosters support and exploitation, the exercise or denial of generosity in modernist texts/criticism, generosity as method, and generosity in resistance or pedagogy. 1/

“You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.” -Angela Davis Happy 81st birthday, Angela Davis. "If you live long enough a defeat will turn into a victory." --Angela Davis

The MSA is seeking nominations for its inaugural ombudsperson. The person doesn't have to be an MSA member, as long as they're familiar with academic organizations like the MSA. www.moderniststudies.org/about/ombuds/

It actually is very important that you do things that you take pleasure in, regularly. That is part of how you survive the things that feel like they are going to destroy you.

Afraid to quantify the amount of times I write "perhaps," "which is to say," "arguably," and "however" in this current thesis chapter, because if I remove all the pompous posturing, I will have very little left

the AMSN conference at @utasenglish.bsky.social just ended, and honestly can't remember the last time I enjoyed a conference so much - huge thanks to the organisers @drmilthorpe.bsky.social @robbiemoore.bsky.social and Fergus Edwards for having me and for putting on such a brilliant three days

Listening to @noreenmasud.bsky.social talk all things flat places, flatness, and Olive Schreiner at the sixth Australian Modernist Studies Network conference in Hobart today. Schreiner wrote in 1888 "I make allegories every day almost," and girl, same #AMSN6

This week @utas.edu.au! AMSN's 6th conference, "Modernism and modernity at the edge", in honour of modernism's edgy aesthetics/ extreme politics/ living in edgy times/ us being at the ocean's edge / valuing the edge/ margins/ disciplinary boundaries.

Remember our extended deadline for conference abstracts! And grad students, we welcome you - so tell us about your dissertation and scholarship, whether or not it sparked the fury of the worst parts of internet culture. 😉

Have a look at our fabulous line-up of speakers, and register to join us at the Australasian Modernist Studies Network conference on Zoom or in Hobart in December! amsn.org.au/amsn6-modern...

My piece reflecting on the wealth of scholarship published in #Visualities in @mmodernity.bsky.social over the past five years is now live, sandwiched between brilliant pieces by forum co-editors @alixbeeston.bsky.social @pdabashi.bsky.social and Stephen Ross: modernismmodernity.org/forums/posts...