Can you read English cursive? Ever wanted to volunteer from the comfort of home for a useful cause? Have I got an offer for you... The Newberry Library in Chicago is always in need of transcribers to help decipher historical handwritten documents. If this is you, learn more about it below:

OH MY HEART...the Oberlin Luddites Reject "The Year of AI Exploration"! 💚

Calling all modernist grads! If you've ever stared at a draft and wondered why it can't just write itself, MSA's publication mentorship might be for you! @mmodernity.bsky.social @fimassociation.bsky.social @modernistudies.bsky.social @modernism-asia.bsky.social

Just the greatest thing, and then Misty Copeland, too.

Hey modernists! Planning to go to MLA next year? Want to be part of this conversation? mla.confex.com/mla/2027/web...

This reminds me of something Toni Morrison wrote.

We are thrilled to introduce our three new PG Reps, @hettiegarnham.bsky.social, @vedikaushal.bsky.social, and @xyzhao.bsky.social! Please give them a very warm welcome! 👏👏

some of you are looksmaxxing when you need to be booksmaxxing

Yes. Finally, someone understands my PhD

V day with my one and only (JSTOR)

Bad Bunny's halftime show, aside from being fantastic, is a great example of how humanities education & a responsive community discourse supports people to collaboratively identify, analyse, interpret, & finally value meaning from symbolic images & storytelling. Plus, it had Ricky Martin

I might be slow on the uptake but apparently em-dashes are an AI thing? I—a great lover of the em-dash—refuse to let the algorithm have this. I will retain my overuse—even when unnecessary—

We are excited to join forces with the Australasian Modernist Studies Network for: "Toxic Modernism / Modernist Intoxication" Hosted at U Adelaide, Nov 19-21; proposals due 24 July. Please spread the word and join us!

Jane Hirshfield, 'Let Them Not Say' (2014): Let them not say: we did not see it. We saw.

MLA, looking after the people #MLA2026 #MLA26 @modernlanguage.bsky.social

I don’t do end-of-year publication roundups, but I’m deeply proud of this essay cluster on “Modernism in Comics” that I edited for @mmodernity.bsky.social, and I encourage everyone to spend some time with the brilliant pieces in it.

Ever been generous? Considered the fraught ethical ways generosity shapes modernist literature/studies? Come to @moderniststudies.bsky.social session "Generous Modernisms" at 1.45pm Friday at #MLA2026! Showcasing work from three continents @amyeelkins.bsky.social @tamlynavery.bsky.social & others.

Layover in paradise (aka Vancouver), en route to Toronto for #MLA26. Pls join me — plus all 32 puffer jackets I’m rocking as an Aussie bracing her first 🇨🇦 winter 🤪! — this Fri. 145pm for a roundtable on generous modernisms w/ @jessmasters.bsky.social & excellent @moderniststudies.bsky.social folks.

He must have read À REBOURS (1884)

new quarter century more art more good

There are worse ways to farewell one year and begin the next than having the toys from Play School serenade Australia with Auld Lang Syne. May 2026 be a kinder year to us all

Left 2019 as Grease Travolta, leaving 2025 as Pulp Fiction Travolta

The nested narratives in this

Believe it or not, it's already time to think about MSA 2026 in Loughborough, UK. The conference will meet July 1-4, and proposals for panels, papers, roundtables, workshops, and seminars is December 1. Please note this MUCH earlier deadline. The CFP is here: www.moderniststudies.org/conference/M...

The first rule of NYC is obviously mind your business, but the second one appears to be that now it's legal to jaywalk, it's stupid not to

Now that the amazing and insanely full MSA Boston conference is over, I'm just making sure the place in NYC where EE Cummings would bellow YOU ALRIGHT DJUNA to Barnes across the way is still there (it's there) @moderniststudies.bsky.social

MSA friends! Come watch me read a (too hastily-written) paper on ekphrastic accumulation at 10.15 on Friday and perhaps, if you're lucky, you may even see me butcher @glavey.bsky.social 's amazing work! The potential for fun is endless @moderniststudies.bsky.social

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.